Eleven years ago, with the global economy reeling from the ravages of the financial crisis, stocks strung together a little run that lifted the Dow Jones Industrial Average about 10% in four days.

Nobody knew then, but it was the start of a rally that would ultimately add $20 trillion to equities and become the most enduring in history.

Now, a bull market that nobody saw coming has ended the same way it began — amid panic, and with little warning. Based on when it last hit a record, the Dow plunged 20% from Feb. 12, and investors who had only just begun to wade back in are getting crushed by a global health scare that has, thus far, resisted every effort to halt. (Inconveniently for market statisticians, the bear market arrived first in the Dow and not their preferred gauge, the S&P 500.)

In the end, it was one more crisis than could be contained by the market’s guardians. What set apart this bull market was, of course, the Federal Reserve. In modern history, no rally has been more closely associated with the central bank — and its unprecedented experiments in monetary policy — than this one. But policy makers who had so successfully shielded investors from credit crises, subpar economic growth and all manner of market turmoil, had no answer for a virus threatening to cause a global recession.

“What changed during this bull market is we assumed the Fed could solve everything. If this becomes a global demand problem, the Fed won’t be as able to help –- not with conventional policy,” said Peter Tchir, head of macro strategy at Academy Securities LLC.

It’s testament to the power of the advance that a plunge as violent as this one has lowered the annualized bull market return by less than 2 percentage points. If by a miracle you bought at the bottom, you’re still sitting on handsome gains — about 15% a year. Someone who waited 12 months before jumping in is doing fine, too.

“The bull market became an old friend and maybe we took its ability to fly for granted a bit too much, its ability to continue to power on,” said Marvin Loh, senior global macro strategist for State Street. “It was unique, it was euphoric. It made a lot of people feel great. But a lot of people didn’t participate as much as they could have, also.”

Not everyone will mourn an era whose early stages were fueled by Ben Bernanke’s controversial approach to stimulus, experiments with names like Quantitative Easing and Operation Twist designed to spur investment by pushing banks and individuals out of the fixed-income havens to which they flocked during the crisis. Every time the rally threatened to collapse — and shares twice before came within points of losing 20% — central bank pronouncements breathed new life.

“Looking back on this bull market, financial textbooks will be re-written to start with central bank policy,” said Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. “And that section could equate to nearly half the content.”

The rally was a monster by many measures. At its peak on Feb. 19, the S&P 500 needed to climb about 3% more to eclipse the return of the mother of all bull markets, the dot-com frenzy that lifted it 545%. At the same time, its slow-and-steady nature kept it out of the ranks of the fastest. Going by the S&P 500 — which isn’t in a bear market, technically — the 18.3% annualized gain at the top is actually smaller than all but one of 12 previous bull markets.

Its biggest claim to history is its length. While a robust debate exists among wonks over how to date bull markets, most statisticians consider this to be the most durable on record. It lasted 11 years and two days and featured two calendar years in which the total return exceeded 30%.

The unrelenting climb has made U.S. stocks the envy of the world for a decade. In the past 10 years, the S&P 500’s gained more than 135%, compared with an advance of about 60% in the MSCI All-Country World Index. Emerging market stocks fell around 2% over that period.

“It was an all-American bull market. It paid to be provincial,” said Doug Ramsey, chief investment officer at Leuthold Group. “Toward the end, consumer discretionary did exceptionally well, especially considering we came out of a massive consumer recession. That’s an all-American thing: consumption.”

Amid Europe’s credit crisis, a downgraded U.S. credit rating, the Flash Crash, the rally struggled to gain converts early on — some wags called it the most hated bull market ever. In later stages a different sort of contempt began to emerge, from struggling American wage earners who saw equity returns as a Fed-fomented gift to the 1%. At various times in the past decade the return on the S&P 500 has exceeded growth in worker pay by the most on record. Four tech megacaps have seen their value jump over $1 trillion.

That aside, for anyone depending on the market for old-age money, the sight of the plunge has been harrowing.

“Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren how our generation rode an investment fad that overweighted stocks in our portfolios from the highs down to the lows, leaving us with less than we hoped for in retirement,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for MUFG Union Bank. “The end of the bull market really means an end of confidence in our own futures. We’ll never see a repeat of 2019’s 28.8% gain in the S&P 500 again.”

The World Health Organization today finally declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic after blaming ‘alarming levels of inaction’ by governments across the planet for fueling the crisis.

As the number of confirmed cases of the bug worldwide surpassed 112,000 – and the death toll neared 4,500 – the WHO said it was ‘deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity’.

Director-General of the UN agency Dr Tedros Adhanom also blasted governments for ignoring repeated WHO pleas to take urgent and aggressive action, with cases of the deadly illness outside of China having risen 13-fold in the space of a fortnight because of escalating crises in Italy, Iran, Spain, Germany, and France.

The WHO said: ‘Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly. It is a word that, if misused, can cause unreasonable fear, or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death.’

In a desperate call for governments to band together and tackle the coronavirus, Dr Adhanom said: ‘We’re in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It’s doable.’

The last pandemic – defined as the uncontrolled worldwide spread of a new disease – to be officially declared was the swine flu outbreak in 2009, which scientists estimate killed hundreds of thousands of people.

More than 125,000 people globally have already been infected with the coronavirus, which can cause pneumonia but causes mild flu-like symptoms for 98 per cent of patients.

Cases have slowed dramatically in China, where the bug first emerged at the end of December. However, the crisis has now enveloped Europe, where the number of cases rises by the day.

Around 60million Italians – whose country is the worst-hid by the infection after China – are now subject to an official curfew imposed upon them by the Italian Government.

Outbreaks are also worsening in Spain, France, Germany, and the UK; in the latter, the eighth confirmed death by the coronavirus was announced earlier, leading to charges of dithering by Boris Johnson’s administration.

Leading experts, including Germany’s health minister, have called the crisis a pandemic for weeks – and the WHO itself has admitted the killer virus has been spreading between humans in four continents since February 28.

2 Medics in hazmat suits care to a patient in Civile Hospital, Brescia, Italy. Italy is at the centre of the escalating coronavirus crisis, with more than 10,000 cases recorded

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A doctor in Wuhan, China – where the outbreak began at the end of December – checks the medicine given to an infected patient

Medical workers in Seoul, South Korea transfer a coronavirus patient to a hospital in a special tube to contain the virus

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PANDEMIC AND AN EPIDEMIC?

An epidemic is a situation in which a disease takes hold in a single community, which could be a town, region or country.

For an epidemic to be declared, the disease must be continuing to spread among the population without people having to catch it from other people and not from the disease’s original source – in the case of the coronavirus this would be the animal market in Wuhan.

A pandemic is when this ongoing person-to-person spread of the disease happens in multiple countries around the world.

A disease being a pandemic does not make it more dangerous, nor change anything about how it affects people or what can be done to stop it.

The World Health Organization had hesitated to declare a pandemic because, for a long time, most of the cases being seen in countries outside of China were in people who had travelled there or caught it directly from someone who travelled there.

Now the disease is so widespread that people can catch it without any obvious link to China, and the numbers are continuing to rise worldwide despite travel bans, showing the virus is in constant circulation within various countries.

A report by the WHO on Monday confirmed that the virus was spreading unchecked in at least 30 countries in Europe, which is now at the centre of the global crisis.

In other developments to the escalating global crisis today:

An elderly woman became the first person to die of coronavirus in the Republic of Ireland;

Iran reported 63 new deaths from the virus in 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since it announced the first deaths from the outbreak;

Three Disneyland Paris workers tested positive for the killer infection and were placed in quarantine as the park closes two attractions;

Holiday plans were thrown into further doubt as Turkey became the latest tourist hotspot to be hit by the coronavirus;

A passenger was arrested for licking his hand and wiping it on a handrail on the Belgian subway, forcing the train to be taken off service and disinfected;

A British woman became the first person to catch the killer illness in Jamaica – it is unclear where she caught the virus;

Experts have warned Italy has a higher death rate than expected because its population is older than average.

The specific definition of a pandemic are not universally agreed upon, but there are known to be three main criteria.

These are: sustained person-to-person transmission, evidence of world-wide spread and a disease that can cause sudden illness or death.

COVID-19 is a mild flu-like illness for the overwhelming majority of patients, which may explain why the WHO was so reluctant to call it a pandemic.

Until today, it said the clusters of cases in other countries around the world could be traced back to Asia, where the situation began.

Calling the outbreak a pandemic does not mean any advice given to countries on on how to contain the killer virus will change – it is just an admission that it is now spreading in dozens of nations.

More countries have now confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the killer infection, than those that haven’t.

Saudi Arabia temporarily suspended travel of citizens and residents and halted flights with several states on Thursday due to coronavirus fears.

The decision includes the European Union, Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Sudan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia, source added, saying the Kingdom also suspended entry to those coming from these countries.

Saudi Arabia also suspended passenger traffic through all land crossings with Jordan, while commercial and cargo traffic is still allowed, and the passage of exceptional humanitarian cases.

Cuba confirmed its first cases of coronavirus, while its textile industry has been drafted to fabricate masks and the government also urged citizens to make their own, amid a cash crunch and dwindling supplies worldwide.

The World Health Organization has said the coronavirus outbreak can now be classed as a pandemic. Pictured, it’s chief executive Dr Tedros Adhanom

WHAT ARE COUNTRIES DOING TO STOP THE CORONAVIRUS?

World Health Organization director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, applauded the efforts Italy, South Korea and Iran have been making to try and stop the coronavirus.

Here’s what they’re doing:

Italy

Italy’s government has this week put the entire country into a lockdown. Citizens have been told not to travel out of their hometowns unless it is necessary, and face jail time if they try to break the rules. They are allowed out to go shopping and to go to work in some cases.

Schools, museums, sports events and large gatherings have all been closed or cancelled to stop people coming together in crowds.

The country is urging all tourists who are there to leave and return to their home countries.

South Korea

South Korea has been hailed as a success in its coronavirus response as it appears to have managed to stem a rapidly spiralling outbreak. Thousands of people were infected there in a short space of time but the country locked down the worst-hit cities – Daegu and Cheongdo – and ramped up testing and isolation protocols.

The nation quickly upgraded its response to a high alert level and was meticulous in tracing the contacts of its confirmed cases and testing and isolating them, too. Rapid diagnostic tests have been available there since mid-January, Pharmaceutical Technology reports.

It issued stay-home notices to citizens in Cheongdo and Daegu and sent the cities into shutdown while officials tracked down coronavirus patients.

Iran

Iran has also seen a devastating surge in coronavirus cases in a short time but has told its citizens to stop travelling around the country.

The country’s national airline has stopped all flights to Europe and the authorities have closed all schools and universities, stopped large events and sports matches, and cut people’s working hours to try and reduce travel and slow down the spread of the virus.

There are roadblocks with checks on people travelling around the city of Qom, where the outbreak started, The Guardian reported.

At a press conference in Geneva – where the WHO is based, Dr Tedros revealed 81 countries have not reported any cases.

He said: ‘We cannot say this loudly enough, or clearly enough, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic. Even those countries with community transmission or large clusters can turn the tide on this coronavirus.’

Dr Tedros said several countries have demonstrated the virus can be suppressed and controlled – outbreaks in China and South Korea have dramatically slowed.

But he added the ‘challenge for many countries’ now dealing with large clusters ‘is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will’.

Dr Tedros also said: ‘Some countries are struggling with a lack of capacity. Some countries are struggling with a lack of resources.’

And in a veiled jab at some countries battling escalating outbreaks, he added: ‘Some countries are struggling with a lack of resolve.’

He said: ‘We are grateful for the measures being taken in Iran, Italy and South Korea to slow the virus and control their COVID19 epidemics. We know that these measures are taking a heavy toll on societies and economies, just as they did in China.

‘This is not just a public health crisis, it is a crisis that will touch every sector – so every sector and every individual must be involved in the fight.

‘I remind all countries that we are calling on you to: activate & scale up your emergency response mechanisms; communicate with your people about the risks and how they can protect themselves; find, isolate, test and treat every COVID19 case and trace every contact.’

An epidemic is a situation in which a disease takes hold in a single community, which could be a town, region or country. A pandemic is when this ongoing person-to-person spread of the disease happens in multiple countries around the world.

A disease being a pandemic does not make it more dangerous, nor change anything about how it affects people or what can be done to stop it.

A report by the WHO on Monday confirmed that the virus was spreading unchecked in 30 countries in Europe, which is now at the centre of the global crisis.

The list of countries include Spain, Germany and France – popular Easter holiday destinations for thousands of Brits looking to jet abroad.

The patient, who hasn’t been identified, suffered from respiratory symptoms before a doctor decided to test for COVID-19.

Health chiefs in Ireland did not reveal her age but said she died earlier today despite treatment at a hospital in the east of the country.

Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said: ‘I would like to extend my condolences to the family and friends of this patient.’

Europe is now the centre of the world’s coronavirus crisis and has more than 19,000 cases, with numbers shooting up by the day as the situation in China stagnates

The head of the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) Paul Reid tweeted that the Republic is entering ‘a new phase’ of coronavirus

IRAN RECORDS 63 NEW DEATHS FROM THE VIRUS – THE HIGHEST DAILY TOLL

Iran today reported 63 new deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since it announced the first deaths from the outbreak.

In an attempt to combat the disease, firefighters were deployed this morning to spray disinfectant over the city’s streets.

Iran’s Health Ministry said the deaths are among some 9,000 confirmed cases in Iran, where the virus has spread to all of the country’s provinces.

Iran is yet to officially impose quarantines but authorities have repeatedly called on people to refrain from travelling. It has closed schools and universities and resorted to shutting hotels and other tourist accommodation to discourage travel.

Among the dead are five of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard members and an unspecified number of the Guard’s volunteer Basij force.

There are concerns that the number of infections across Iran is much higher than the confirmed cases reported by the government, which is struggling to contain or manage its spread. The rising casualty figures each day in Iran suggest the fight against the new coronavirus is far from over.

In other developments, a British woman died of coronavirus in Indonesia – becoming the country’s first death in the epidemic.

Indonesia’s government said the 53-year-old woman with diabetes and lung disease had died in hospital after being admitted in a critical condition.

Reports in Indonesia say she was cremated today. Her husband was also in Indonesia and is due to return to Britain soon, officials say.

It means eight Brits have now died from COVID-19. The first death to be recorded was a holidaymaker onboard the doomed Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined off the coast of Japan.

Six fatalities have since been recorded in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have yet to record any deaths.

Iran today reported 63 new deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since it announced the first deaths from the outbreak.

In an attempt to combat the disease, firefighters were deployed this morning to spray disinfectant over the city’s streets.

Iran’s Health Ministry said the deaths are among some 9,000 confirmed cases in Iran, where the virus has spread to all of the country’s provinces.

Iran is yet to officially impose quarantines but authorities have repeatedly called on people to refrain from travelling.

It has closed schools and universities and resorted to shutting hotels and other tourist accommodation to discourage travel.

Indonesia’s government said the 53-year-old woman with diabetes and lung disease had died in hospital, reportedly the Sanglah hospital in Bali (pictured)

The British woman was reportedly cremated at this crematorium complex in Bali today (pictured) after she died following a positive test for coronavirus

Most of the cases confirmed in the UK have been in England (387). Fears are mounting that the worsening crisis in the UK is mirroring that of Italy, where 60million people have been placed in an unprecedented lockdown

People wearing a protective face masks walking across London Bridge today as Britain braces itself for an increase in cases of the coronavirus. Experts expect the outbreak to peak in the next fortnight with thousands more cases

Firefighters on a firetruck trundle down a road in southern Tehran today, spraying disinfectant to stem the spread of the coronavirus

A firefighter points from the spraying end of a fire truck that is disinfecting the streets of Tehran, today

Disinfection works are being carried out by fire brigade crew in the streets of Tehran as a precaution against coronavirus (COVID-19) today

Iranian firefighters disinfect the streets of Tehran to halt the spread of the coronavirus today

WHY ARE SO MANY PATIENTS DYING IN ITALY?

Italy has the highest coronavirus death rate in the world with one in every 16 people who catch the disease there dying from it.

At least 10,149 people have now been diagnosed with the virus, making it the worst hit country outside of China, and 631 are confirmed to have died.

Its death rate is 6.22 per cent, according to the most recent data – the highest in the world.

The deadly impact in Italy has been put down to three possible factors – a huge population of old people, cases being concentrated in a small area, and a lag in testing meaning the number of total cases is inaccurate.

Italy has the biggest population of elderly people in Europe, with almost a quarter of people (22 per cent) aged 65 or older. And the median age – the middle of the age range – is 46.5 years old, according to the CIA – the fifth highest in the world.

For comparison, the UK’s median age is 40.6 (18 per cent aged over 65) and the US’s is 38.5 (17 per cent over 65).

The older someone is, the more deadly catching the coronavirus can be. Age is known to be one of the biggest risk factors because the immune system and lungs are naturally weaker so the body is less able to fend off pneumonia, which the virus causes in severe cases.

Research has found that people aged 80 or over have a 14.8 per cent risk (one in seven) of dying if they develop COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Among the dead are five of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard members and an unspecified number of the Guard’s volunteer Basij force.

There are concerns that the number of infections across Iran is much higher than the confirmed cases reported by the government, which is struggling to contain or manage its spread.

The rising casualty figures each day in Iran suggest the fight against the new coronavirus is far from over.

It comes after a passenger was arrested for licking his hand and wiping it on a handrail on the Belgian subway, forcing the train to be taken off service and disinfected.

The unidentified man, who appears intoxicated, can be seen removing his mask before bringing his hand to his mouth and licking it.

He then brings his right hand up to the vertical rail and grips it, before rubbing it along the bar.

The Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company, the capital’s public transport provider, tweeted shortly after the event: ‘The man (intoxicated) was arrested by the police and our security service.

‘The subway train was withdrawn from service to be disinfected. Thank you for your message. Our metros are cleaned every day.’

The video, posted by a user who preferred to remain anonymous, was uploaded to Twitter on Saturday and social media users were outraged by the man’s behaviour.

Elsewhere in Europe, Poland today closed all schools, museums and cinemas, while Ukraine’s capital city Kiev will shut all educational buildings due to fears of coronavirus spreading despite both countries having lower rates of infection compared to the rest of Europe.

Speaking at a joint conference following a special meeting on coronavirus, Polish ministers said that pre-schools and schools would stop teaching on Thursday, but limited care would still be provided this week to the youngest children. Universities, museums, theaters and cinemas will also close on Thursday for two weeks, the officials said.

In the footage posted on the 9 March, the man can be seen cradling his can of beer on the Belgium subway system

The man, who the Brussels public transport system said was intoxicated, can be seen pulling down his face mask

BUT DIDN’T THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAY IT WOULD NOT DECLARE OUTBREAKS A PANDEMIC?

The WHO drew flak for declaring the 2009 swine flu outbreak a pandemic, which turned out to be mild and less deadly than feared.

It used to use a six-phase system for outbreaks, with phase six being a full-blown pandemic. Critics said the WHO created panic about swine flu and caused governments to stockpile vaccines which went unused.

Some even questioned its links to the pharmaceutical industry, after firms such as GlaxoSmithKline profited from producing a H1N1 vaccine.

H1N1, which emerged in Mexico and the US, is thought to have killed up to 200,000 people in more than 200 countries.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told MailOnline that the body no longer uses the six-tier phasing system but added its advice ‘remains the same’.

He said: ‘We continue working with countries to limit the spread of the virus while also preparing for the possibility of wider spread.’

The WHO eventually declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30.

The WHO rejected making the coronavirus outbreak a PHEIC before its eventual U-turn. It is only the sixth time the term has been used.

The designation, still in place, was aimed at helping countries with weaker health systems shore up their defenses, especially in Africa.

The move is also being carried out by Poland’s neighbour, Ukraine, in its capital city, Kiev.

Poland has confirmed 26 cases of coronavirus, but looking at how fast the virus spreads in some other European countries, the government decided to take the preventive action, officials said.

The Mayor of Kiev, Vitaly Klitschko, whose country has counted just one case, said he was introducing similar ‘preventive measures’.

The WHO earlier this month admitted the killer coronavirus outbreak sweeping the world won’t be officially declared a pandemic.

Instead, the UN-body said the crisis has already been a public health emergency of international concern – the highest warning level – for a month.

The WHO drew flak for declaring the 2009 swine flu outbreak a pandemic, which turned out to be mild and less deadly than feared.

It used to use a six-phase system for outbreaks, with phase six being a full-blown pandemic.

Critics said the WHO created panic about swine flu and caused governments to stockpile vaccines which went unused.

Some even questioned its links to the pharmaceutical industry, after firms such as GlaxoSmithKline profited from producing a H1N1 vaccine.

H1N1, which emerged in Mexico and the US, is thought to have killed up to 200,000 people in more than 200 countries.

The WHO eventually declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30.

The WHO rejected making the coronavirus outbreak a PHEIC before its eventual U-turn. It is only the sixth time the term has been used.

The designation, still in place, was aimed at helping countries with weaker health systems shore up their defenses, especially in Africa.

Polish Border Guard officers during a sanitary control on the Polish-Ukrainian railway border in Przemysl, southeastern Poland, yesterday

Health workers wear a protective masks and suits as they stands next to a temporary health facility before screening passengers on the A1 highway near the Polish-Czech border yesterday in Gorzyczki, Poland

Why are so many people dying from the coronavirus in Italy? Experts warn country’s population is older than average and say thousands of cases could have been missed because symptoms are so mild

Italy has the highest coronavirus death rate in the world with one in every 16 people who catch the disease there dying from it.

At least 10,149 people have now been diagnosed with the virus, making it the worst hit country outside of China, and 631 are confirmed to have died.

Its death rate is 6.22 per cent, according to the most recent data – the highest in the world.

In China the death rate is 3.91 per cent and scientists have suggested if that is higher than the true figure because many cases are likely to be going unreported.

The deadly impact in Italy has been put down to three possible factors – a huge population of old people, cases being concentrated in a small area, and a lag in testing meaning the number of total cases is inaccurate.

Only Wuhan and the Hubei province around it have more cases of the coronavirus than Lombardy, the worst hit area in Italy, which is putting immense pressure on local health systems.

Italy has the worst coronavirus death rate in the world, which experts put down to its elderly population and the possibility that a large number of cases are not being diagnosed

Milan’s Duomo cathedral is pictured almost deserted today as Italy is in complete lockdown as it grapples with the worst coronavirus outbreak outside of China

A municipal worker is seen spraying disinfectant in Piazza San Marco in Venice today. Tourism has all but stopped in Italy and citizens are banned from travelling

Italy has become the unlikely epicenter of the world’s coronavirus crisis.

It yesterday recorded a massive 168 deaths in a single day and, on Monday, had at least 1,492 new infections confirmed.

Even in the peak of its own epidemic, China – with a population 22 times the size of Italy’s – never recorded more than 3,900 in a day.

Government complacency has been blamed for the speed at which the outbreak has gripped the country, but the age of its citizens may be what is causing the deaths.

Italy has the biggest population of elderly people in Europe, with almost a quarter of people (22 per cent) aged 65 or older.

And the median age – the middle of the age range – is 46.5 years old, according to the CIA – the fifth highest in the world.

For comparison, the UK’s median age is 40.6 (18 per cent aged over 65) and the US’s is 38.5 (17 per cent over 65).

The older someone is, the more deadly catching the coronavirus can be.

Age is known to be one of the biggest risk factors because the immune system and lungs are naturally weaker so the body is less able to fend off pneumonia, which the virus causes in severe cases.

Research has found that people aged 80 or over have a 14.8 per cent risk (one in seven) of dying if they develop COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The local president of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, confirmed: ‘All the deaths we’ve had are either very old people or very sick people,’ the New York Times reported.

Figures from the World Health Organization and Chinese scientists reveal that as the age of the patient increases, the greater their risk of dying

People queue up outside a supermarket in Rome today. People have been urged to keep their distance from others and to avoid forming crowds

Top-tier football teams Juventus and Inter Milan are pictured playing a match behind closed doors earlier this week – the Serie A league has since been put on hold as the government battles the outbreak

A roadblock is shown at the Austrian border – Austria is now turning away Italian citizens who try to cross onto its soil without a certificate proving they’re coronavirus-free

Victim’s brother furious at lack of support from Italian authorities

WHAT ARE THE RULES OF ITALY’S QUARANTINE?

THE SICK MUST STAY AT HOME

People who have tested positive for coronavirus must not leave their homes for any reason.

Anyone with a fever or respiratory symptoms is urged to stay at home and limit social contact, including with their doctor.

NO TRAVEL ACROSS ITALY

Travel is only allowed for ‘urgent, verifiable work situations and emergencies or health reasons’. Grocery shopping is considered a ‘necessity’ and still allowed.

To avoid work-related travel, public and private companies have been urged to put their staff on leave.

Flights, trains and public transport will continue but Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says he wants as many people as possible to stay at home.

People who do want to travel will need to fill in a document explaining their reasons for doing so and carry it with them.

NO PUBLIC GATHERINGS

‘All forms of gatherings in public places or sites open to the public’ are banned, the decree says.

Cinemas, museums, theatres, pubs, dance schools, betting shops and discos are all closed. Weddings and funerals are banned. Schools and universities will remain shut until April 3.

Bars and restaurants were only allowed to open between 8am and 6pm, the decree said, and only if a distance of at least 3ft could be kept between customers.

Sporting events of all levels and disciplines were cancelled – stopping play in the Serie A football league. Fixtures in international competitions can go ahead but will be played behind closed doors.

Shops can remain open but only if they can guarantee the 3ft safety distance for customers.

Big and mid-sized shopping centres have to close at the weekend. Food stores are allowed to remain open at all hours.

NO LEAVE FOR HEALTH WORKERS

Leave for health workers is cancelled. People accompanying their friends or relatives to emergency units are not allowed to stay with them in the waiting rooms without express permission.

ALL OF ITALY IS COVERED

The entire country, including the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, is covered by the decree – covering a total population of some 60million people.

As patient ages decline, so do their chances of dying.

Between 60 and 69 years old the death rate is around 3.6 per cent, while it is more like 1.3 per cent for those aged 50 to 59.

For people in their 40s this drops to 0.4 per cent, and it’s just 0.2 per cent for those in their 30s.

People who have other long-term health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease or cancer are also at a greater risk because they have weaker immune systems than usual.

Italians caught up in the country’s coronavirus outbreak may also be at particularly high risk because most of the cases are concentrated in a small area.

The northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto are the ones that have been hardest hit by the infection.

Lombardy is an area smaller than England with Milan as its only major city, but is host to more than 5,000 coronavirus cases, while the surrounding regions of Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Piedmont contain the majority of the remainder.

This means Lombardy has more cases than any province of China outside of Hubei, of which Wuhan is the capital.

That region alone has more cases than Spain, France, Germany or the US do in total.

As a result local hospitals are under immense pressure, which means patients may not get the high quality care they need and the virus could be more likely to spread in overloaded hospitals.

Experts also say that the true number of cases is not being recorded in Italy because the infection is spreading so fast and people with mild illness may not be counted.

This means the death rate appears higher than it is because all the deaths will be counted – most patients will have been hospitalised and diagnosed before dying –but not all the infections.

Krys Johnson, a disease expert at Temple University in Philadelphia, admitted: ‘We probably don’t know how many people have actually become infected,’ according to Scientific American.

The situation is so bad in Italy partly because the Government stopped testing people in late January unless they had been to China.

Strict rules had been put in place to test anyone with the symptoms of coronavirus but, after the Government banned all flights from China – it was the first country to do so – the testing relaxed.

As a result, infected people are believed to have travelled into Italy from other countries.

The first confirmed patient is thought to have passed the virus on to at least five other people, including doctors and patients in the hospital he was taken to, before even being diagnosed.

Officials still don’t know how the man, a 38-year-old in Milan, was infected, and there are fears the virus circulated for weeks before he was discovered.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS?

Someone who is infected with the coronavirus can spread it with just a simple cough or a sneeze, scientists say.

More than 4,500 people with the virus are now confirmed to have died and more than 125,000 have been infected. Here’s what we know so far:

What is the coronavirus?

A coronavirus is a type of virus which can cause illness in animals and people. Viruses break into cells inside their host and use them to reproduce itself and disrupt the body’s normal functions. Coronaviruses are named after the Latin word ‘corona’, which means crown, because they are encased by a spiked shell which resembles a royal crown.

The coronavirus from Wuhan is one which has never been seen before this outbreak. It has been named SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The name stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2.

Experts say the bug, which has killed around one in 50 patients since the outbreak began in December, is a ‘sister’ of the SARS illness which hit China in 2002, so has been named after it.

The disease that the virus causes has been named COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019.

Dr Helena Maier, from the Pirbright Institute, said: ‘Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that infect a wide range of different species including humans, cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and wild animals.

‘Until this new coronavirus was identified, there were only six different coronaviruses known to infect humans. Four of these cause a mild common cold-type illness, but since 2002 there has been the emergence of two new coronaviruses that can infect humans and result in more severe disease (Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses).

‘Coronaviruses are known to be able to occasionally jump from one species to another and that is what happened in the case of SARS, MERS and the new coronavirus. The animal origin of the new coronavirus is not yet known.’

The first human cases were publicly reported from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where approximately 11million people live, after medics first started publicly reporting infections on December 31.

By January 8, 59 suspected cases had been reported and seven people were in critical condition. Tests were developed for the new virus and recorded cases started to surge.

The first person died that week and, by January 16, two were dead and 41 cases were confirmed. The next day, scientists predicted that 1,700 people had become infected, possibly up to 7,000.

Just a week after that, there had been more than 800 confirmed cases and those same scientists estimated that some 4,000 – possibly 9,700 – were infected in Wuhan alone. By that point, 26 people had died.

By January 27, more than 2,800 people were confirmed to have been infected, 81 had died, and estimates of the total number of cases ranged from 100,000 to 350,000 in Wuhan alone.

By January 29, the number of deaths had risen to 132 and cases were in excess of 6,000.

By February 5, there were more than 24,000 cases and 492 deaths.

By February 11, this had risen to more than 43,000 cases and 1,000 deaths.

A change in the way cases are confirmed on February 13 – doctors decided to start using lung scans as a formal diagnosis, as well as laboratory tests – caused a spike in the number of cases, to more than 60,000 and to 1,369 deaths.

By February 25, around 80,000 people had been infected and some 2,700 had died. February 25 was the first day in the outbreak when fewer cases were diagnosed within China than in the rest of the world.

Where does the virus come from?

According to scientists, the virus almost certainly came from bats. Coronaviruses in general tend to originate in animals – the similar SARS and MERS viruses are believed to have originated in civet cats and camels, respectively.

The first cases of COVID-19 came from people visiting or working in a live animal market in Wuhan, which has since been closed down for investigation.

Although the market is officially a seafood market, other dead and living animals were being sold there, including wolf cubs, salamanders, snakes, peacocks, porcupines and camel meat.

A study by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published in February 2020 in the scientific journal Nature, found that the genetic make-up virus samples found in patients in China is 96 per cent identical to a coronavirus they found in bats.

However, there were not many bats at the market so scientists say it was likely there was an animal which acted as a middle-man, contracting it from a bat before then transmitting it to a human. It has not yet been confirmed what type of animal this was.

Dr Michael Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London, was not involved with the research but said: ‘The discovery definitely places the origin of nCoV in bats in China.

‘We still do not know whether another species served as an intermediate host to amplify the virus, and possibly even to bring it to the market, nor what species that host might have been.’

So far the fatalities are quite low. Why are health experts so worried about it?

Experts say the international community is concerned about the virus because so little is known about it and it appears to be spreading quickly.

It is similar to SARS, which infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in an outbreak in Asia in 2003, in that it is a type of coronavirus which infects humans’ lungs. It is less deadly than SARS, however, which killed around one in 10 people, compared to approximately one in 50 for COVID-19.

Another reason for concern is that nobody has any immunity to the virus because they’ve never encountered it before. This means it may be able to cause more damage than viruses we come across often, like the flu or common cold.

Speaking at a briefing in January, Oxford University professor, Dr Peter Horby, said: ‘Novel viruses can spread much faster through the population than viruses which circulate all the time because we have no immunity to them.

‘Most seasonal flu viruses have a case fatality rate of less than one in 1,000 people. Here we’re talking about a virus where we don’t understand fully the severity spectrum but it’s possible the case fatality rate could be as high as two per cent.’

If the death rate is truly two per cent, that means two out of every 100 patients who get it will die.

‘Two per cent case fatality rate is comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 so it is a significant concern globally.’

How does the virus spread?

The illness can spread between people just through coughs and sneezes, making it an extremely contagious infection. And it may also spread even before someone has symptoms.

It is believed to travel in the saliva and even through water in the eyes, therefore close contact, kissing, and sharing cutlery or utensils are all risky. It can also live on surfaces, such as plastic and steel, for up to 72 hours, meaning people can catch it by touching contaminated surfaces.

Originally, people were thought to be catching it from a live animal market in Wuhan city. But cases soon began to emerge in people who had never been there, which forced medics to realise it was spreading from person to person.

What does the virus do to you? What are the symptoms?

Once someone has caught the COVID-19 virus it may take between two and 14 days, or even longer, for them to show any symptoms – but they may still be contagious during this time.

If and when they do become ill, typical signs include a runny nose, a cough, sore throat and a fever (high temperature). The vast majority of patients will recover from these without any issues, and many will need no medical help at all.

In a small group of patients, who seem mainly to be the elderly or those with long-term illnesses, it can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection in which the insides of the lungs swell up and fill with fluid. It makes it increasingly difficult to breathe and, if left untreated, can be fatal and suffocate people.

Figures are showing that young children do not seem to be particularly badly affected by the virus, which they say is peculiar considering their susceptibility to flu, but it is not clear why.

What have genetic tests revealed about the virus?

Scientists in China have recorded the genetic sequences of around 19 strains of the virus and released them to experts working around the world.

This allows others to study them, develop tests and potentially look into treating the illness they cause.

Examinations have revealed the coronavirus did not change much – changing is known as mutating – much during the early stages of its spread.

However, the director-general of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said the virus was mutating and adapting as it spread through people.

This means efforts to study the virus and to potentially control it may be made extra difficult because the virus might look different every time scientists analyse it.

More study may be able to reveal whether the virus first infected a small number of people then change and spread from them, or whether there were various versions of the virus coming from animals which have developed separately.

How dangerous is the virus?

The virus has a death rate of around two per cent. This is a similar death rate to the Spanish Flu outbreak which, in 1918, went on to kill around 50million people.

Experts have been conflicted since the beginning of the outbreak about whether the true number of people who are infected is significantly higher than the official numbers of recorded cases. Some people are expected to have such mild symptoms that they never even realise they are ill unless they’re tested, so only the more serious cases get discovered, making the death toll seem higher than it really is.

However, an investigation into government surveillance in China said it had found no reason to believe this was true.

Dr Bruce Aylward, a World Health Organization official who went on a mission to China, said there was no evidence that figures were only showing the tip of the iceberg, and said recording appeared to be accurate, Stat News reported.

Can the virus be cured?

The COVID-19 virus cannot be cured and it is proving difficult to contain.

Antibiotics do not work against viruses, so they are out of the question. Antiviral drugs can work, but the process of understanding a virus then developing and producing drugs to treat it would take years and huge amounts of money.

No vaccine exists for the coronavirus yet and it’s not likely one will be developed in time to be of any use in this outbreak, for similar reasons to the above.

The National Institutes of Health in the US, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, say they are working on a vaccine based on what they know about coronaviruses in general, using information from the SARS outbreak. But this may take a year or more to develop, according to Pharmaceutical Technology.

Currently, governments and health authorities are working to contain the virus and to care for patients who are sick and stop them infecting other people.

People who catch the illness are being quarantined in hospitals, where their symptoms can be treated and they will be away from the uninfected public.

And airports around the world are putting in place screening measures such as having doctors on-site, taking people’s temperatures to check for fevers and using thermal screening to spot those who might be ill (infection causes a raised temperature).

However, it can take weeks for symptoms to appear, so there is only a small likelihood that patients will be spotted up in an airport.

Is this outbreak an epidemic or a pandemic?

The outbreak was declared a pandemic on March 11. A pandemic is defined by the World Health Organization as the ‘worldwide spread of a new disease’.

Previously, the UN agency said most cases outside of Hubei had been ‘spillover’ from the epicentre, so the disease wasn’t actually spreading actively around the world.

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‘Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on’: Trump claims the oil price war behind markets crash is ‘GOOD for the consumer’ because gas prices are coming down and blames fake coronavirus news for historic drop

Donald Trump continues to downplay the threat of coronavirus, claiming the media and Democratic Party is trying to ‘inflame’ the situation in the U.S.

‘The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything … to inflame the CoronaVirus situation,’ the president tweeted Monday

He also insisted that the massive market drop Monday morning is actually ‘good for the consumer’ because prices are lower for gasoline

His claim comes as the death toll in the U.S. reached 26 Monday

Global and the U.S. stock markets also continue to plummet over the fast-spreading virus and concerns over Saudi Arabia launching a price war on oil

Trump, the first to tout market gains under his administration, has not address the market impact of coronavirus

Donald Trump claimed the oil price crash which led to the plunging stock market was ‘good’ for consumers because it is based on cheaper gas Monday as Wall Street faced a fall so dramatic trading was briefly halted.

‘Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!’ Trump tweeted Monday, one of a string of tweets accusing the ‘fake news’ of prompting the sell-off.

He accused the media of ‘inflaming’ the virus outbreak and dismissed the collapse in oil prices as the result of Saudi Arabia and Russia ‘arguing.’

As the Dow Jones lost a year’s gains, he was shuttling across Florida from Mar-a-Lago to a $100,000-a-head fundraiser – and tweeting that flu was worse than coronavirus.

‘Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil,’ Trump continued in another tweet Monday morning. ‘That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!’

Markets all over the world plummeted Monday over the growing threat of the virus spreading, but Trump has not addressed the economic impact as the coronavirus death toll bypassed 20 in the U.S.

Global markets opened with big losses Monday morning as the economy saw its worst day in more than 10 years.

Trump continued to downplay the threat, citing that more people died from the flu last year, and insisting life and the economy will ‘go on’ even over the escalation in coronavirus outbreak.

‘So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year,’ Trump cited in a tweet.

‘Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on,’ he insisted. ‘At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!’

The president has repeatedly expressed incredulity at the number of flu deaths, and the idea that people die of it. In 1918, his grandfather Freidrich died of Spanish flu.

Trump claims that media outlets are working with Democrats to make the coronavirus outbreak seem worse than it is.

Donald Trump claimed Monday morning that the market drop is ‘good for the consumer’ because gasoline prices are coming down

The Dow Jones saw its worst single-day drop since 2008 as Saudi Arabia goes into a price war over oil and concerns over coronavirus spreading continues to rock, but Trump said the ‘fake news’ is the reason for the plummet

During his trip to attend a fundraiser in Orlando, Trump shook hands with supporters gathered to greet him

The president insisted while tweeting from Florida Monday that ‘life & the economy [will] go on’ as markets plunged and coronavirus concerns spread

In continuing to downplay the threat of coronavirus, he claimed the media and Democratic Party are trying to ‘inflame’ the situation in the U.S.

Instead, he took to Twitter to laud himself and his administration for the response to the outbreak

Trump also praised himself for making the decision to halt travel from high-risk countries as the fast-spreading respiratory virus rose as a worldwide threat

‘The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant,’ the president tweeted Monday morning.

‘Surgeon General, ‘The risk is low to the average American,” he continued, quoting U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams.

‘So much FAKE NEWS!’ he lamented in a separate tweet Monday morning.

Trump’s claims comes as the death toll in the U.S. reached 26 on Monday afternoon and cases continued to spread to new areas of the country, including the first confirmed case in Washington, D.C.

Kansas and Missouri also announced their first cases over the weekend as the cases number now exceeds 600.

The most U.S. deaths occurred in Washington state after the virus spread among residents at a nursing facility in a suburb of Seattle.

But Trump insists the threat is less serious than is being portrayed by media reports and Democratic lawmakers.

He then praised himself in another tweet Monday morning for banning travel from high-risk countries early on in the outbreak.

‘The BEST decision made was the toughest of them all – which saved many lives,’ Trump lauded of his administration. ‘Our VERY early decision to stop travel to and from certain parts of the world!’

Trump stopped travel from certain countries to the U.S., including from China and Iran – and Americans have been warned of traveling to other high-risk countries like Italy and South Korea.

The president is usually the first to address stock market gains under his administration, but since coronavirus has caused markets to fall, he has remained largely silent on the matter.

Earlier this month, the U.S. saw its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis and on Monday markets plunged nearly 7 per cent.

Markets in Asia, Europe and the Middle East also opened sharply lower on Monday as investors came to grips with the global spread of coronavirus.

Trump also praised Vice President Mike Pence, who he appointed last month to lead the charge by the coronavirus task force on addressing the outbreak and halting the spread

The global market plunged, causing the worst one-day crash in crude oil prices in 30 years, after Saudi Arabia launched a price war.

On Friday Russia refused to follow OPEC’s efforts to stop market plummets caused by the escalation of the coronavirus outbreak.

In early trading, BP was down by 18 percent, Royal Dutch Shell was down 14 percent and ExxonMovil was down 11 percent.

Ordinarily, a slump in oil prices offers a boost for airlines because their fuel costs are low.

But with the ever-shrinking demand for flights due to the virus, they have been left unable to capitalize.

The coronavirus crisis, which has now infected more than 110,000 people globally, has crippled supply chains and prompted cuts to global growth forecasts for 2020.

Downtrodden brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning before the market opened

Gregory Rowe, a trader, look forlorn as he waits for the markets to open

There are now more than 500 cases of the virus in the US alone

There is no sign that the spread is close to slowing down, either.

Traders are now expecting the Federal Reserve to again cut interest rates next week after an emergency reduction on March 3, putting the yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury on course for its biggest one-day fall in almost a decade.

Coronavirus has infected more than 108,000 people worldwide and is throwing many countries’ economies into turmoil.

The number of confirmed cases in New York rose by 13 over the weekend, nearing the state total to 90.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued a declaration of emergency in the state.

But Trump claimed late Sunday night that the messaging from Cuomo is ‘political weaponization’ of the coronavirus.

‘There are no mixed messages, only political weaponization by people like you and your brother, Fredo!’ Trump insisted in his tweet, making reference to Cuomo’s brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.

Graphic shows spread of Coronavirus as world cases top 110,000

HOW SAUDI ARABIA IS TRYING TO CRIPPLE RUSSIAN OIL

Saudi Arabia slashed its oil export prices over the weekend and declared a price war with Russia that sent global markets reeling and marked the sharpest decline in oil futures since 1991.

The price drop came after Russia refused to sign on with a proposal by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut production globally as the coronavirus outbreak has slowed the demand for oil.

OPEC nations met with allies like Russia on Thursday and Friday in Vienna to reduce oil production by an additional 1.5million barrels per day to stabilize the market starting in April through the end of the year.

But Russia refused to join to agreement.

From Russia’s perspective cutting production would boost US oil producers at the expense of international competitors and lead to a loss in profits.

On Saturday, after the group failed to come to a consensus, Saudi Arabia – which runs the world’s large oil company Saudi Aramco – slashed its export oil prices to saturate the market and trigger a price war aimed at Russia.

An oil price war triggered by a falling out between Saudi Arabia and Russia is exasperating the economic chaos. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) and Russian president Vladimir Putin (right)

Saudi Arabia slashed crude prices to Chinese customers by as much as $6 to $7 a barrel and is looking to boost output by as many as 2million barrels a day.

China is the world’s biggest oil importer and has purchased oil at cheap prices to stockpile for future use in the past.

As a result the Brent global oil benchmark fell dramatically on Sunday by 30 percent, dropping to $31.02 a barrel at its lowest.

US West Texas Intermediate crude, the other main price benchmark for oil, dropped 27% to $30 per barrel – the lowest level since February 2016.

Sunday’s decline in the oil market was the sharpest slump in 29 years since the Gulf War in 1991.

The failed talks marked the first break in a three-year alliance between Saudi Arabia led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

The alliance was key to competing with a surge in American oil production that turned the US into a major crude exporter for the first time in decades.

In response to the price cut Russia said its companies were free to pump as much as they could, as per Bloomberg.

‘If you are Russia, it’s worth it for you to take a three-month price hit to see if you can knock out U.S. oil exports,’ Amy Myers Jaffe, an oil and Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said to the New York Times. ‘They might be correct for three months but the shale never gets destroyed.’

Jaffe said the disagreement between the two nations ‘signals that the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia is on the skids.’

Analysts speculate the actions over the weekend may have been a game between Saudi Arabia and Russia that will end when they come to a compromise.

Airlines blamed the media for exaggerating the effects of the coronavirus Tuesday, urgently broadcasting that they are “open for business” as travel continues to slump and new numbers suggest the worst may be yet to come for the industry.

In a statement Tuesday morning, the trade group Airlines for America said that “false media narratives … have led to confusion and uncertainty across the country,” and argued that it’s safe to fly, saying “numerous health officials have affirmed that the risk remains low for travelers who follow CDC guidelines.”

That’s a message that at least two lawmakers — among the nation’s most frequent flyers — heard loud and clear.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the committee that oversees aviation, said she didn’t fly home to Washington state last weekend and doesn’t plan to in the foreseeable future.

“I have an 88-year-old mom who’s living at my house [in Washington] and she’s been ill, and I want to give her the comfort of being there. When you have elderly people you want to make sure you’re not putting them at additional risk,” she said. “And look, do I think that there can be airline travel that is safe? Yes. But if you don’t have to…”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), 85, noted that the doctor said “stay off of those planes as much as we can.”

“If any of you is going to Alabama Thursday night, can I get a ride?” Shelby quipped to reporters gathered around him Tuesday. “I’ll ride in the back of the truck.”

Also Tuesday, a coalition of mostly travel interests spearheaded by the U.S. Travel Association made a similar plea, noting that canceling travel and events “has a trickle-down effect that threatens to harm the U.S. economy, from locally owned hotels, restaurants, travel advisors and tour operators to the service and frontline employees who make up the backbone of the travel industry and the American economy.”

The groups’ plea comes amid fresh warnings and widespread fear around the disease, along with new figures suggesting a worsening financial situation for the airline industry.

Yesterday, the credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded the industry’s outlook from stable to negative, warning that there is an “increasing risk to demand for passenger air travel as the coronavirus expands globally.”

And today, the Global Business Travel Association reported that business travel is “slowing at an alarming rate,” finding that 13 percent of its members have canceled even domestic travel, along with high rates of canceled international business travel.

“Those are the customers that are the most profitable for airlines,” said airline analyst Henry Harteveldt.

Though airlines have yet to publicly ask for assistance from the government, the potential for some kind of stimulus has been a topic of discussion on and off Capitol Hill for days, and President Donald Trump has indicated that he favors some assistance for airlines and the cruise industry.

On Tuesday, Trump, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, met with Senate Republicans at their weekly lunch to discuss potential stimulus ideas on a range of topics.

Several Republican senators said that support for the airline and cruise industries was discussed generally, but that few specifics were given.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said that he had not been approached by either industry asking for aid.

Despite the fresh bad news, there is still a high level of uncertainty in the outlook for airlines and the travel industry broadly. “At this point, you cant really do forecasting because we’ve never really been in a situation quite like this before,” said Harteveldt.

And it remains true that overall, the industry is in much better shape than it was after 9/11 and in 2008, when airlines were hit hard by the recession, said Bob Mann, another airline industry analyst.

“The industry structure and company’s balance sheets individually are in far better shape,” he said. “Even the worst balance sheets are better than the average balance sheets in 2008 and 2001.”

Airlines have been taking steps to reduce their capacity, which Mann called “prudent.”

American Airlines is the latest to make that call, announcing this morning it would cut summer international flights by 10 percent and domestic flights by 7.5 percent. Delta Air Lines also said Tuesday that it is cutting international flights by 20 percent to 25 percent and domestic flights by 10 percent to 15 percent.

Contents

Personal life

Keane was born in 1943 in Manhattan, New York,[1][2] the son of Elizabeth (Davis) and John Keane. He has a brother, Ronald. Keane married Theresa Doyle in 1965 and has two sons.[3] His wife died in 2016 after having Parkinson’s disease for 14 years.[4]

In 1991 Keane saved the life of David Petraeus during a live-fire exercise. According to Keane, Petraeus was shot “accidentally, standing right next to me, and I had to fight to save his life. He had a hole about the size of a quarter in his back and is gushing with blood, and we stopped the bleeding and got him on a helicopter and got him to a surgeon and so we were sort of bonded ever since that time.”[6]

Keane retired from military service in 2003.

Post military service

Following his retirement, he has served as an informal advisor to presidents and other senior officials. He served an advisory role in the management of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, as a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In January 2007, Keane and scholar Frederick W. Kagan released a policy paper titled “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,”[7] through the American Enterprise Institute that called for bringing security by putting 30,000 additional American troops there for a period of at least 18 months. In part convinced by this paper, President George W. Bush ordered on January 10, 2007, the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, most of whom would be deployed to Baghdad. This deployment has been nicknamed the 2007 “surge“.[8][9]

Of his initial meeting with President Bush regarding the surge, Keane said he made a phone call to Newt Gingrich to ask his advice prior to the meeting. As Keane said in 2014,

Gingrich gave me some good advice. He said, “Look, Jack. Most people go in the Oval Office, even people who go in there a lot, have a tendency in front of the President of the United States to always leave something on the table.” He said, “Don’t leave anything on the table.” He said, “You’re going to get about 15 minutes at best and put it all out there. And when you walk out of that room, feel good that you got it all out there.” So that was sound advice, and I did put it all out there.[10]

Keane was asked by then-Vice President Cheney to go back on active duty and lead the surge in the field. When Keane declined, Cheney pressed him to come work in the White House and oversee both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Keane again declined. Keane ended up briefly working at the White House and then later traveled to Iraq several times to advise General Petraeus.[11]

Current activities

Keane is a regular contributor to Fox News, and is involved in a variety of business, think tank and charitable activities. He serves as chairman of AM General, the firm that produces the Humvee.[12][13]. In June 2016, Keane co-founded IP3 International (IP3), a nuclear energy consulting firm.

Shortly after Stanley A. McChrystal declined the Secretary of Defense job, Vice-President Elect Pence heard the emotional reasons for the newly widowed general’s decline of the same job. After the departure of General Mattis, the President offered the job again to the subject, but he declined because he was newly remarried.[15] He is considered an influential voice to leaders from both major political parties, including President Trump, particularly on foreign policy issues related to the Middle East.[16]

IP3

Keane is a cofounder and director of IP3 International.[17] According to a staff report to the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and subsequently, Trump aides such as Jared Kushner and others have been engaged in promoting IP3’s plan to transfer nuclear technology from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, IP3 founders and others have been seeking to broker a deal with Riyadh without the “gold standard,” a provision — tied to section 123 of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act which establishes conditions for nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and its allies — that seeks to limit weaponizing of nuclear energy.[18][19] In July 2019, the committee chairman released a second staff report that detailed various activities and contacts between IP3 and the Trump administration.[18][20]

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The Beatles – Revolution

Revolution

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
All right, all right

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We all doing what we can
But if you want money
For people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
All right, all right
Ah

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah…

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
All right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right

In the wake of the Iowa caucuses and heading into the New Hampshire primary, there is a dramatic shift in the Democratic primary race for president as Senator Bernie Sanders claims frontrunner status for the first time, overtaking former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll released today. Sanders gets 25 percent of the vote among Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic, while Biden gets 17 percent, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg receives 15 percent, Senator Elizabeth Warren gets 14 percent, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg receives 10 percent, and Senator Amy Klobuchar gets 4 percent. No other candidate tops 2 percent.

In a January 28th poll, prior to the Iowa caucuses, Biden had a modest lead with 26 percent of the vote while Sanders got 21 percent, Warren had 15 percent, Bloomberg received 8 percent, Klobuchar got 7 percent, and Buttigieg received 6 percent.

“Biden scrambles to bounce back in frigid New Hampshire after an icy slide to 17 percent, his lowest national number,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Analyst Tim Malloy.

“Is the Bloomberg camp prepping the white horse for him to ride to the rescue? Maybe not yet, but without setting foot in Iowa or New Hampshire, he is suddenly a looming shadow over the primary field,” Malloy added.

Among moderate and conservative Democrats and Democratic leaners, there is now a close race for the top spot. This group had favored Biden by a wide margin, but his challengers are making inroads. Today, Biden receives 22 percent, Bloomberg gets 21 percent, Sanders gets 17 percent, and Buttigieg receives 12 percent.

Biden no longer dominates on the key question of electability, as 27 percent say Biden has the best chance of winning against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, while 24 percent say Sanders, 17 percent say Bloomberg, and 9 percent say Buttigieg. In the January 28th poll, Biden led on this question with 44 percent, followed by Sanders at 19 percent and Bloomberg at 9 percent.

“Clearly Biden’s fourth place finish in Iowa has hurt the perception of what was his biggest strength – electability,” Malloy said.

THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Among all registered voters, Democratic candidates lead President Trump in general election matchups by between 4 and 9 percentage points, with Bloomberg claiming the biggest numerical lead against Trump:

Bloomberg tops Trump 51 – 42 percent;

Sanders defeats Trump 51 – 43 percent;

Biden beats Trump 50 – 43 percent;

Klobuchar defeats Trump 49 – 43 percent;

Warren wins narrowly over Trump 48 – 44 percent;

Buttigieg is also slightly ahead of Trump 47 – 43 percent.

President Trump’s favorability rating is underwater, as 42 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view of him. However, it is his best favorability rating since a March 7th, 2017 poll, when his favorability rating was a negative 43 – 53 percent.

Like President Trump, the top four Democratic candidates in the primary are viewed more unfavorably than favorably. Warren has the worst net score (favorable minus unfavorable) among all registered voters, with Biden close behind. Biden’s favorability numbers have been declining over the last year since his positive 53 – 33 percent favorability rating in a December 19th, 2018 poll. In today’s poll:

Less than a week after President Trump was acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial and delivered his State of the Union address, the president’s job approval continues to match his highest approval number, with 43 percent of voters saying they approve of the job President Trump is doing and 53 percent saying they disapprove. This remains essentially unchanged since mid-December 2019. Broken down along party lines, Republicans approve 89 – 9 percent, Democrats disapprove 94 – 4 percent, and independents are split with 46 percent approving and 50 percent disapproving.

Looking at how President Trump compares to his two predecessors at the same point in their re-election years, voters gave President Obama a slightly negative 45 – 49 percent job approval rating in February of 2012, and President Bush a slightly positive 48 – 45 percent job approval rating in February of 2004. Unlike President Trump, though, both presidents had hit higher approval ratings in their previous years in office. President Obama had hit a high of 59 percent approval in 2009, and President Bush received a high of 83 percent approval in 2001.

“Fresh from acquittal by the Senate, feistily throwing haymakers in every direction, the president presumably has a strong economy to ride all the way to Election Day. The Democrats are facing a reinvigorated and formidable Trump,” added Malloy.

THE ECONOMY

President Trump continues to score high marks on his handling of the economy. Voters approve 54 – 42 percent of his handling of the economy, compared to his all-time high of 57 – 38 percent on January 13th, 2020. Republicans approve 97 – 3 percent, Democrats disapprove 81 – 15 percent, and independents approve 59 – 37 percent.

When asked about their personal financial situations, voters say 59 – 20 percent that they are better off financially than they were in 2016, the last presidential election year, while 19 percent say their financial situation is the same. This compares to a December 10th, 2019 survey that found 57 percent were better off, 22 percent were worse off, and 19 percent were the same.

Overall, 70 percent of voters describe the nation’s economy as excellent or good and 29 percent describe it as not so good or poor. That is just slightly lower than the all-time high set on December 16th, 2019, when 73 percent said excellent or good and 25 percent said not so good or poor.

Despite the acquittal, voters say 55 – 40 percent that the Senate voting to acquit President Trump does not clear him of any wrongdoing in the Ukraine matter. Republicans say 81 – 12 percent that the acquittal clears the president of wrongdoing, while Democrats 91 – 6 percent and independents 54 – 40 percent say it does not. By 51 – 46 percent, voters say the charges against President Trump were serious enough for him to be impeached and put on trial.

From February 5 – 9, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,519 self-identified registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points. The survey includes 665 Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic with a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts gold standard surveys using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones. The Quinnipiac University Poll conducts nationwide surveys and polls in more than a dozen states on national and statewide elections, as well as public policy issues.

TREND: (If Democrat or Democratic Leaner) If the Democratic primary for president were being held today, and the candidates were: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet, Tom Steyer, Deval Patrick, and Michael Bloomberg, for whom would you vote? (Trend information is available upon request back through Mar 2019)

TREND: (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Regardless of how you intend to vote in the Democratic primary for president, which candidate do you think would be the best leader? (Trend information is available upon request back through Apr 2019)

TREND: (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Regardless of how you intend to vote in the Democratic primary for president, which candidate do you think has the best policy ideas? (Trend information is available upon request back through Apr 2019)

5. (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Regardless of how you intend to vote in the Democratic primary for president, which candidate do you think – has the best chance of winning against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election?

TREND: (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Regardless of how you intend to vote in the Democratic primary for president, which candidate do you think has the best chance of winning against Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election? (Trend information is available upon request back through Apr 2019)

6. (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Thinking about the 2020 Democratic primary for president, if all other things are equal, would you prefer a candidate that most shares your views on issues or a candidate that you think is the most electable?

TREND: (If Democrat or Democratic leaner) Thinking about the 2020 Democratic primary for president, if all other things are equal, would you prefer a candidate that most shares your views on issues or a candidate that you think is the most electable?

36. As you may know, the articles of impeachment were based on President Trump’s actions involving Ukraine. Do you think that the Senate voting to acquit President Trump clears him of any wrongdoing in the Ukraine matter, or don’t you think so?

37. Regardless of the Senate’s verdict, do you think the charges against President Trump were serious enough for him to be impeached and put on trial, or would you say the charges were not serious enough for him to have been impeached and put on trial?

ust under a fifth of cases of the killer coronavirus in Hubei – the deserted Chinese province at the centre of the outbreak – result in death, leading scientists have today claimed.

Officials have repeatedly claimed the death toll is around two per cent, making the SARS-like infection far less deadly than similar coronaviruses and more severe than the flu.

But virologists tracking the escalating outbreak say the case-fatality ratio is much higher in Hubei than elsewhere in China because only the most severe patients are coming forward to be treated.

Figures show the actual toll in Hubei – the province home to Wuhan – is 871 deaths from 29,631 infected patients. But Imperial College London researchers believe it will be closer to the 18 per cent mark.

More than 40,000 people across the world have now caught the unnamed infection, with eight cases now recorded in the UK, 12 in the US and 15 in Australia. The virus is spread on surfaces and through coughs and sneezes.

It comes as the World Health Organization chief today warned the coronavirus crisis publicised so far could ‘only be the tip of the iceberg’ amid fears that thousands of cases are going missing.

Nearly 100 people died from coronavirus in China yesterday on the deadliest day of the six-week outbreak so far. But the number of new patients diagnosed appears to be dropping day-by-day.

More than 40,000 people have been infected with the virus and 910 are confirmed to have died, all but two of them in China

More than 40,000 people have now caught the killer coronavirus – nearly 99 per cent of the cases have been recorded in China

WUHAN CORONAVIRUS: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

What is this virus?

The virus has been identified as a new type of coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of pathogens, most of which cause mild lung infections such as the common cold.

But coronaviruses can also be deadly. SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is caused by a coronavirus and killed hundreds of people in China and Hong Kong in the early 2000s.

Can the Wuhan coronavirus kill?

Yes – 910 people have so far died after testing positive for the virus.

What are the symptoms?

Some people who catch the Wuhan coronavirus may not have any symptoms at all, or only very mild ones like a sore throat or a headache.

Others may suffer from a fever, cough or trouble breathing.

And a small proportion of patients will go on to develop severe infection which can damage the lungs or cause pneumonia, a life-threatening condition which causes swelling and fluid build-up in the lungs.

How is it detected?

The virus’s genetic sequencing was released by scientists in China and countries around the world have used this to create lab tests, which must be carried out to confirm an infection.

Delays to these tests, to test results and to people getting to hospitals in China, mean the number of confirmed cases is expected to be just a fraction of the true scale of the outbreak.

How did it start and spread?

The first cases identified were among people connected to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.

Cases have since been identified around China and are known to have spread from person to person.

What are countries doing to prevent the spread?

Countries all over the world have banned foreign travellers from crossing their borders if they have been to China within the past two weeks. Many airlines have cancelled or drastically reduced flights to and from mainland China.

Is it similar to anything we’ve ever seen before?

Experts have compared it to the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The epidemic started in southern China and killed more than 700 people in mainland China, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

In comparison to other coronaviruses, the new strain, first found in Wuhan and thought to have spread to humans from a traditional wet market, is much less deadly.

Figures show the highly contagious severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which also began in China, killed around 10 per cent of the 8,000 patients it struck during a worldwide epidemic in 2002/03.

And the World Health Organization says the death rate for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS) is even higher – at around 34 per cent. It was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012.

One of the world’s deadliest diseases, Ebola, kill around half of all patients it strikes. Ebola is much different to this new coronavirus because it is caused by a separate family of viruses.

The Imperial College London team, who has tracked the coronavirus outbreak first began six weeks ago, said they estimate the overall case-fatality ratio is still likely to be around one per cent.

Experts have repeatedly said potentially thousands of patients may not go to their doctor for treatment because they may have such minor symptoms – such as a cough and fever – that they do not need to seek help.

Professor Neil Ferguson, who led the Imperial team, wrote: ‘Outside mainland China, countries alert to the risk of infection being imported via international travel have instituted surveillance for 2019-nCoV infection with a broader set of clinical criteria for defining a suspected case, typically including a combination of symptoms (cough and fever) combined with recent travel history to the affected region (Wuhan/Hubei).

‘Such surveillance is therefore likely to pick up clinically milder cases as well as the more severe cases also being detected in mainland China.

‘However, by restricting testing to those with a travel history or link, it is also likely to miss other symptomatic cases (and possibly hospitalised cases with atypical pneumonia) that have occurred through local transmission or through travel to other affected areas of China.’

The researchers added: ‘It is important to note that the differences in these estimates does not reflect underlying differences in disease severity between countries.

‘CFRs seen in individual countries will vary depending on the sensitivity of different surveillance systems to detect cases of differing levels of severity and the clinical care offered to severely ill cases.

‘All CFR estimates should be viewed cautiously at the current time as the sensitivity of surveillance of both deaths and cases in mainland China is unclear.’

Figures also show 910 people have now died across the world, with all but two deaths recorded in mainland China

HOW THE CORONAVIRUS HAS SPREAD OVER TIME

The vast majority of coronavirus cases have been in mainland China, but more than 25 other countries and territories have declared infections:

Belgium: 1 case, first case February 4

Spain: 2 case, first case January 31

Sweden: 1 case, first case January 31

Russia: 2 cases, first case January 31

UK: 8 cases, first case January 31

India: 3 cases, first case January 30

Philippines: 3 cases, first case January 30

Italy: 3 cases, first case January 30

Finland: 1 case, first case January 29

United Arab Emirates: 7 cases, first case January 29

Germany: 14 cases, first case Jan 27

Sri Lanka: 1 case, first case Jan 27

Cambodia: 1 case, first case Jan 27

Canada: 7 cases, first case Jan 25

Australia: 15 cases, first case Jan 25

Malaysia: 18 cases, first case Jan 25

France: 11 cases, first case January 24

Nepal: 1 case, first case January 24

Vietnam: 14 cases, first case Jan 24

Singapore: 43 cases, first case January 23

Macau: 10 cases, first case Jan 22

Hong Kong: 36 cases, first case January 22

Taiwan: 18 cases, first case Jan 21

USA: 12 cases, first case January 20

South Korea: 27 cases, first case January 20

Japan: 156 cases, first case January 16

Thailand: 32 cases, first case Jan 13

Professor Ferguson added: ‘It’s not more severe in Hubei than elsewhere. It’s just that they’re only detecting and reporting the most severe cases there. We estimate there are at least 10 times more cases than reported in Hubei. Most of which likely have rather milder symptoms.’

In other developments today, police in the UK have been given the power to seize people trying to escape coronavirus quarantine and force them back into isolation in handcuffs.

A law-change was revealed after an patient staying at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China.

Government sources said those who returned to the UK on the evacuation flights on January 31 were given a ‘very clear choice’ and had to sign contracts saying they would remain in isolation for a fortnight.

But a source involved with the Arrowe Park incident said: ‘We found we didn’t have the necessary enforcement powers to make sure they didn’t leave.’

Police will now be able to force people to remain in the units and, if they leave, to arrest them for committing an offence and take them back to the quarantine facility, MailOnline understands.

The new rule comes as England today announced its fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth cases of the virus – all of the three men and a woman are linked to the fourth patient, who has now been dubbed a ‘super-spreader’.

The fourth patient was a businessman who returned to the UK from a conference in Singapore via a ski chalet in France, where other Britons were subsequently taken ill with the virus.

The Department of Health today declared the outbreak a ‘serious and imminent’ threat to the British public as it announced new powers to fight the spread.

In other developments to the outbreak today:

World Health Organization chief warns coronavirus outbreak could ‘only be the tip of the iceberg’ amid fears thousands of cases are going missing

Just under a fifth of known cases of the new coronavirus in China may be resulting in death, a new report estimates

The coronavirus can survive on door handles and bus or train poles for up to nine days – more than four times longer than flu, according to research

London’s FTSE 100 weakened after Mr Hancock declared the coronavirus outbreak a serious and imminent threat to public health

Nearly 100 people died from coronavirus in China yesterday on the deadliest day of the six-week outbreak so far

Amazon and Sony are the latest companies to pull out of this month’s Mobile World Congress, due to be held in Barcelona, because of the coronavirus outbreak

Sixty-six more passengers on a cruise ship in Japan have been diagnosed the killer infection, taking the ship’s toll to around 136

A total of five people have now been diagnosed in Brighton. The four new cases have been linked to the first man who was diagnosed there after returning from the Alps

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE DEADLY CORONAVIRUS IN CHINA?

Someone who is infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can spread it with just a simple cough or a sneeze, scientists say.

At least 910 people with the virus are now confirmed to have died and more than 40,640 have been infected in at least 28 countries and regions. But experts predict the true number of people with the disease could be 100,000, or even as high as 350,000 in Wuhan alone, as they warn it may kill as many as two in 100 cases. Here’s what we know so far:

What is the Wuhan coronavirus?

A coronavirus is a type of virus which can cause illness in animals and people. Viruses break into cells inside their host and use them to reproduce itself and disrupt the body’s normal functions. Coronaviruses are named after the Latin word ‘corona’, which means crown, because they are encased by a spiked shell which resembles a royal crown.

The coronavirus from Wuhan is one which has never been seen before this outbreak. It is currently named 2019-nCoV, and does not have a more detailed name because so little is known about it.

Dr Helena Maier, from the Pirbright Institute, said: ‘Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that infect a wide range of different species including humans, cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and wild animals.

‘Until this new coronavirus was identified, there were only six different coronaviruses known to infect humans. Four of these cause a mild common cold-type illness, but since 2002 there has been the emergence of two new coronaviruses that can infect humans and result in more severe disease (Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses).

‘Coronaviruses are known to be able to occasionally jump from one species to another and that is what happened in the case of SARS, MERS and the new coronavirus. The animal origin of the new coronavirus is not yet known.’

The first human cases were publicly reported from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where approximately 11million people live, after medics first started seeing infections on December 31.

By January 8, 59 suspected cases had been reported and seven people were in critical condition. Tests were developed for the new virus and recorded cases started to surge.

The first person died that week and, by January 16, two were dead and 41 cases were confirmed. The next day, scientists predicted that 1,700 people had become infected, possibly up to 7,000.

Just a week after that, there had been more than 800 confirmed cases and those same scientists estimated that some 4,000 – possibly 9,700 – were infected in Wuhan alone. By that point, 26 people had died.

By January 27, more than 2,800 people were confirmed to have been infected, 81 had died, and estimates of the total number of cases ranged from 100,000 to 350,000 in Wuhan alone.

By January 29, the number of deaths had risen to 132 and cases were in excess of 6,000.

By February 5, there were more than 24,000 cases and 492 deaths.

Where does the virus come from?

According to scientists, the virus has almost certainly come from bats. Coronaviruses in general tend to originate in animals – the similar SARS and MERS viruses are believed to have originated in civet cats and camels, respectively.

The first cases of the virus in Wuhan came from people visiting or working in a live animal market in the city, which has since been closed down for investigation.

Although the market is officially a seafood market, other dead and living animals were being sold there, including wolf cubs, salamanders, snakes, peacocks, porcupines and camel meat.

A study by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published in February 2020 in the scientific journal Nature, found that the genetic make-up virus samples found in patients in China is 96 per cent similar to a coronavirus they found in bats.

There may have been an animal which acted as a middle-man, contracting it from a bat before then transmitting it to a human, researchers suggested, although details of this are less clear.

Dr Michael Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London, was not involved with the research but said: ‘The discovery definitely places the origin of nCoV in bats in China.

‘We still do not know whether another species served as an intermediate host to amplify the virus, and possibly even to bring it to the market, nor what species that host might have been.’

So far the fatalities are quite low. Why are health experts so worried about it?

Experts say the international community is concerned about the virus because so little is known about it and it appears to be spreading quickly.

It is similar to SARS, which infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in an outbreak in Asia in 2003, in that it is a type of coronavirus which infects humans’ lungs.

Another reason for concern is that nobody has any immunity to the virus because they’ve never encountered it before. This means it may be able to cause more damage than viruses we come across often, like the flu or common cold.

Speaking at a briefing in January, Oxford University professor, Dr Peter Horby, said: ‘Novel viruses can spread much faster through the population than viruses which circulate all the time because we have no immunity to them.

‘Most seasonal flu viruses have a case fatality rate of less than one in 1,000 people. Here we’re talking about a virus where we don’t understand fully the severity spectrum but it’s possible the case fatality rate could be as high as two per cent.’

If the death rate is truly two per cent, that means two out of every 100 patients who get it will die.

‘Two per cent case fatality rate is comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 so it is a significant concern globally.’

How does the virus spread?

The illness can spread between people just through coughs and sneezes, making it an extremely contagious infection. And it may also spread even before someone has symptoms.

It is believed to travel in the saliva and even through water in the eyes, therefore close contact, kissing, and sharing cutlery or utensils are all risky.

Originally, people were thought to be catching it from a live animal market in Wuhan city. But cases soon began to emerge in people who had never been there, which forced medics to realise it was spreading from person to person.

There is now evidence that it can spread third hand – to someone from a person who caught it from another person.

What does the virus do to you? What are the symptoms?

Once someone has caught the virus it may take between two and 14 days for them to show any symptoms – but they may still be contagious during this time.

If and when they do become ill, typical signs include a runny nose, a cough, sore throat and a fever (high temperature). The vast majority of patients – at least 97 per cent, based on available data – will recover from these without any issues or medical help.

In a small group of patients, who seem mainly to be the elderly or those with long-term illnesses, it can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection in which the insides of the lungs swell up and fill with fluid. It makes it increasingly difficult to breathe and, if left untreated, can be fatal and suffocate people.

What have genetic tests revealed about the virus?

Scientists in China have recorded the genetic sequences of around 19 strains of the virus and released them to experts working around the world.

This allows others to study them, develop tests and potentially look into treating the illness they cause.

Examinations have revealed the coronavirus did not change much – changing is known as mutating – much during the early stages of its spread.

However, the director-general of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, yesterday said the virus was mutating and adapting as it spread through people.

This means efforts to study the virus and to potentially control it may be made extra difficult because the virus might look different every time scientists analyse it.

More study may be able to reveal whether the virus first infected a small number of people then change and spread from them, or whether there were various versions of the virus coming from animals which have developed separately.

How dangerous is the virus?

The virus has so far killed 910 people out of a total of at least 40,640 officially confirmed cases – a death rate of around two per cent. This is a similar death rate to the Spanish Flu outbreak which, in 1918, went on to kill around 50million people.

However, experts say the true number of patients is likely considerably higher and therefore the death rate considerably lower. Imperial College London researchers estimate that there were 4,000 (up to 9,700) cases in Wuhan city alone up to January 18 – officially there were only 444 there to that date. If cases are in fact 100 times more common than the official figures, the virus may be far less dangerous than currently believed, but also far more widespread.

Experts say it is likely only the most seriously ill patients are seeking help and are therefore recorded – the vast majority will have only mild, cold-like symptoms. For those whose conditions do become more severe, there is a risk of developing pneumonia which can destroy the lungs and kill you.

Can the virus be cured?

The Wuhan coronavirus cannot currently be cured and it is proving difficult to contain.

Antibiotics do not work against viruses, so they are out of the question. Antiviral drugs can, but the process of understanding a virus then developing and producing drugs to treat it would take years and huge amounts of money.

No vaccine exists for the coronavirus yet and it’s not likely one will be developed in time to be of any use in this outbreak, for similar reasons to the above.

The National Institutes of Health in the US, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, say they are working on a vaccine based on what they know about coronaviruses in general, using information from the SARS outbreak. But this may take a year or more to develop, according to Pharmaceutical Technology.

Currently, governments and health authorities are working to contain the virus and to care for patients who are sick and stop them infecting other people.

People who catch the illness are being quarantined in hospitals, where their symptoms can be treated and they will be away from the uninfected public.

And airports around the world are putting in place screening measures such as having doctors on-site, taking people’s temperatures to check for fevers and using thermal screening to spot those who might be ill (infection causes a raised temperature).

However, it can take weeks for symptoms to appear, so there is only a small likelihood that patients will be spotted up in an airport.

Is this outbreak an epidemic or a pandemic?

The outbreak is an epidemic, which is when a disease takes hold of one community such as a country or region.

Although it has spread to dozens of countries, the outbreak is not yet classed as a pandemic, which is defined by the World Health Organization as the ‘worldwide spread of a new disease’.

The head of WHO’s global infectious hazard preparedness, Dr Sylvie Briand, said: ‘Currently we are not in a pandemic. We are at the phase where it is an epidemic with multiple foci, and we try to extinguish the transmission in each of these foci,’ the Guardian reported.

She said that most cases outside of Hubei had been ‘spillover’ from the epicentre, so the disease wasn’t actually spreading actively around the world.

Medical workers in protective suits attend to novel coronavirus patients at the intensive care unit of a hospital in Wuhan

Hong Kong has reported seven more cases, raising its total to 36 after the virus spread at a family gathering attended by two relatives from mainland China.

Meanwhile in Japan, another 60 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were today confirmed to have the virus, taking the total to around 130.

Passengers on the ship have been confined to their cabins in a two-week lockdown with confirmed virus patients taken to hospital on the mainland.

World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there are tentative signs the virus was stabilising, but said there may be more infections abroad in people who have never travelled to China.

Story 1: Solid January 2020 Jobs Report: 225,000 New Non-farm Payroll Jobs Created in January and Labor Participation Rate Increased to 63.4% with Over 729,000 New Participants in Labor Force! — Videos —

Alternate Unemployment Charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

Deficits & Debts: Crash Course Economics #9

Deficits and debt | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy

63.4%: Labor Force Participation at Trump-Era High As Labor Force Grows by 574,000

President Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to plug the strong employment picture for which he takes credit, and today he earned more bragging rights:

The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy created 225,000 in January, well above estimates. BLS says notable job gains occurred in construction, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

The number of employed Americans dipped in January to 158,714,000 — down 89,000 from December’s record high.

The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 3.6 percent in January.

But the labor force participation rate reached a Trump-era high of 63.4 percent, up from 63.2 percent in December, because the civilian labor force increased by 574,000 in January, after accounting for annual adjustments to population controls, BLS said.*

In January, the civilian non-institutional population in the United States was 259,502,000. That included all people 16 and older who did not live in an institution (such as a prison, nursing home or long-term care facility).

Of that civilian non-institutional population, 164,606,000 were participating in the labor force, meaning that they either had a job or were actively seeking one during the last month. This resulted in a labor force participation rate of 63.4 percent, the highest it’s been since June 2013.

The number of Americans counted as not in the labor force — meaning they did not have a job and were not looking for one — dropped by 442,000 in January (after population control adjustments). This number hovers around 95,000,000, partly because of retiring baby boomers.

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 5,000 from +256,000 to +261,000, and the change for December was revised up by 2,000 from +145,000 to +147,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 7,000 higher than previously reported.

In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 7 cents to $28.44. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent.

The current economic expansion, now in its 11th year, became the longest in U.S. history on July 1, 2019, beating the previous record that lasted from March 1991 through March 2001.

President Trump bragged about the economy Tuesday night in his State of the Union speech:

In just over two years since the election, we have launched an unprecedented economic boom — a boom that has rarely been seen before. There’s been nothing like it. We have created 5.3 million new jobs and, importantly, added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs — something which almost everyone said was impossible to do. But the fact is, we are just getting started.

Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades and growing for blue-collar workers, who I promised to fight for. They’re growing faster than anyone else thought possible. Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps. The U.S. economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office. And we are considered, far and away, the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Not even close.

Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for Americans with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. More people are working now than at any time in the history of our country — 157 million people at work.

*(BLS explained that the January 2020 data includes updated population estimates developed by the Census Bureau’s household survey. “Each year,” BLS said, “the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new information and assumptions about the growth of the population since the previous decennial census. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from adjustments for net international migration, updated vital statistics, and estimation methodology improvements.”)

Employment Situation Summary

Transmission of material in this news release is embargoed until USDL-20-0180
8:30 a.m. (EST) Friday, February 7, 2020
Technical information:
Household data: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * cesinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/ces
Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- JANUARY 2020
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 225,000 in January, and the unemployment rate
was little changed at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Notable job gains occurred in construction, in health care, and in transportation and
warehousing.
This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey
measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics.
The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry.
For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two
surveys, see the Technical Note.
___________________________________________________________________________________
| |
| Changes to The Employment Situation Data |
| |
| Establishment survey data have been revised as a result of the annual |
| benchmarking process and the updating of seasonal adjustment factors. In |
| addition, several changes have been made to household survey data, including |
| the annual update of population estimates. See the notes at the end of the |
| news release for more information. |
|___________________________________________________________________________________|
Household Survey Data
Both the unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at
5.9 million, changed little in January.(See table A-1. For information about annual
population adjustments to the household survey estimates, see the note at the end of
the news release and tables B and C.)
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.3 percent),
adult women (3.2 percent), teenagers (12.2 percent), Whites (3.1 percent), Blacks
(6.0 percent), Asians (3.0 percent), and Hispanics (4.3 percent) showed little or
no change over the month. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
Among the unemployed, the number of reentrants to the labor force increased by
183,000 in January to 1.8 million but was little changed over the year. (Reentrants
are persons who previously worked but were not in the labor force prior to beginning
their job search.) (See table A-11.)
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.2 million,
was unchanged in January. These individuals accounted for 19.9 percent of the unemployed.
(See table A-12.)
After accounting for the annual adjustments to the population controls, the civilian
labor force rose by 574,000 in January, and the labor force participation rate edged
up by 0.2 percentage point to 63.4 percent. The employment-population ratio, at 61.2
percent, changed little over the month but was up by 0.5 percentage point over the year.
(See table A-1. For additional information about the effects of the population adjustments,
see table C.)
The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.2 million, was
essentially unchanged in January. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time
employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were
unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)
The number of persons marginally attached to the labor force, at 1.3 million, changed
little in January. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available
for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted
as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey
for a variety of reasons, such as belief that no jobs are available for them (referred
to as discouraged workers), school attendance, or family responsibilities. Discouraged
workers numbered 337,000 in January, little changed over the month. (See Summary table A.)
Establishment Survey Data
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 225,000 in January, compared with an
average monthly gain of 175,000 in 2019.Notable job gains occurred in construction,
in health care, and in transportation and warehousing. (See table B-1. For information
about the annual benchmark process, see the note at the end of the news release and table A.)
In January, construction employment rose by 44,000. Most of the gain occurred in specialty
trade contractors, with increases in both the residential (+18,000) and nonresidential
(+17,000) components. Construction added an average of 12,000 jobs per month in 2019.
Health care added 36,000 jobs in January, with gains in ambulatory health care services
(+23,000) and hospitals (+10,000). Health care has added 361,000 jobs over the past 12 months.
Employment in transportation and warehousing increased by 28,000 in January. Job gains
occurred in couriers and messengers (+14,000) and in warehousing and storage (+6,000).
Over the year, employment in transportation and warehousing has increased by 106,000.
Employment in leisure and hospitality continued to trend up in January (+36,000). Over
the past 6 months, the industry has added 288,000 jobs.
Employment continued on an upward trend in professional and business services in January
(+21,000), increasing by 390,000 over the past 12 months.
Manufacturing employment changed little in January (-12,000) and has shown little movement,
on net, over the past 12 months. Motor vehicles and parts lost 11,000 jobs over the month.
Employment in other major industries, including mining, wholesale trade, retail trade,
information, financial activities, and government, changed little over the month.
In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by
7 cents to $28.44. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by
3.1 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees
were $23.87 in January, little changed over the month (+3 cents). (See tables B-3 and B-8.)
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 34.3
hours in January. In manufacturing, the average workweek remained at 40.4 hours, while
overtime edged down 0.1 hour to 3.1 hours. The average workweek of private-sector production
and nonsupervisory employees edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 5,000 from
+256,000 to +261,000, and the change for December was revised up by 2,000 from +145,000 to
+147,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were
7,000 higher than previously reported. (Monthly revisions result from additional reports
received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from
the recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to the
November and December revisions.) After revisions, job gains have averaged 211,000 over the
last 3 months.
_____________
The Employment Situation for February is scheduled to be released on
Friday, March 6, 2020, at 8:30 a.m. (EST).
____________________________________________________________________________________
| |
| Changes to Household Survey Data |
| |
| Effective with this news release, two not seasonally adjusted series previously |
| displayed in Summary table A--persons marginally attached to the labor force and |
| discouraged workers--have been replaced with new seasonally adjusted series. The |
| new seasonally adjusted series are available in the BLS online database back to |
| 1994. Not seasonally adjusted data for persons marginally attached to the labor |
| force and for discouraged workers will continue to be published in table A-16. |
| These series are also available in the BLS online database back to 1994. |
| |
| Persons marginally attached to the labor force and discouraged workers are |
| inputs into three alternative measures of labor underutilization displayed in |
| table A-15. Effective with this news release, data for U-4, U-5, and U-6 in |
| table A-15 reflect the new seasonally adjusted series. Changes to historical |
| data were negligible. Revised data back to 1994 are available in the BLS online |
| database. Not seasonally adjusted series for the alternative measures are |
| unaffected. |
| |
| Effective with data for January 2020, occupation estimates in table A-13 |
| reflect the introduction of the 2018 Census occupation classification system |
| into the household survey. This occupation classification system is derived |
| from the 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system. Historical |
| data have not been revised. Beginning with data for January 2020, occupation |
| estimates are not strictly comparable with earlier years. |
| |
| In addition, industry estimates in table A-14 reflect the introduction of the |
| 2017 Census industry classification system, which is derived from the 2017 |
| North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The classification |
| changes are minor and do not involve re-classification of industries between |
| the broader industry sectors. |
| |
| Beginning with data for January 2020, marital status estimates are not strictly |
| comparable with earlier years. Estimates of married persons now refer to those |
| in opposite-sex and same-sex marriages. Prior to January 2020, these estimates |
| referred only to those in opposite-sex marriages. Persons with a same-sex |
| spouse were previously classified in other marital status categories, such as |
| "women who maintain families." These changes affect marital status estimates in |
| tables A-9 and A-10. (Note that not all marital status categories are presented |
| in these tables. BLS has not separately tabulated estimates for persons with an |
| opposite-sex spouse and persons with a same-sex spouse.) Historical data have |
| not been revised. |
|____________________________________________________________________________________|
Revisions to Establishment Survey Data
In accordance with annual practice, the establishment survey data released today
have been benchmarked to reflect comprehensive counts of payroll jobs for March 2019.
These counts are derived principally from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
(QCEW), which counts jobs covered by the Unemployment Insurance (UI) tax system. The
benchmark process results in revisions to not seasonally adjusted data from April 2018
forward. BLS revised seasonally adjusted data from January 2015 forward. In addition,
both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted data for some series incorporate other
revisions prior to 2015.
The total nonfarm employment level for March 2019 was revised downward by 514,000
(-505,000 on a not seasonally adjusted basis), or -0.3 percent. The absolute average
benchmark revision over the past 10 years is 0.2 percent.
The over-the-year change in total nonfarm employment for 2019 was revised from
+2,108,000 to +2,096,000 (seasonally adjusted). Table A presents revised total nonfarm
employment data on a seasonally adjusted basis from January to December 2019.
All revised historical establishment survey data are available on the BLS website at
www.bls.gov/ces/data/home.htm. In addition, an article that discusses the benchmark
and post-benchmark revisions and other technical issues is available at
www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbmart.htm.
Table A. Revisions to total nonfarm employment, January to December 2019, seasonally
adjusted
(Numbers in thousands)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| Level | Over-the-month change
|---------------------------------------------------------------------
Year and month | | As | | | As |
| As |previously | Difference| As |previously| Difference
| revised |published | | revised |published |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | |
2019 | | | | | |
| | | | | |
January......... | 150,134 | 150,587 | -453 | 269 | 312 | -43
February........ | 150,135 | 150,643 | -508 | 1 | 56 | -55
March........... | 150,282 | 150,796 | -514 | 147 | 153 | -6
April........... | 150,492 | 151,012 | -520 | 210 | 216 | -6
May............. | 150,577 | 151,074 | -497 | 85 | 62 | 23
June............ | 150,759 | 151,252 | -493 | 182 | 178 | 4
July............ | 150,953 | 151,418 | -465 | 194 | 166 | 28
August.......... | 151,160 | 151,637 | -477 | 207 | 219 | -12
September....... | 151,368 | 151,830 | -462 | 208 | 193 | 15
October......... | 151,553 | 151,982 | -429 | 185 | 152 | 33
November........ | 151,814 | 152,238 | -424 | 261 | 256 | 5
December(p)..... | 151,961 | 152,383 | -422 | 147 | 145 | 2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(p) = preliminary.
Adjustments to Population Estimates for the Household Survey
Effective with data for January 2020, updated population estimates were incorporated into
the household survey. Population estimates for the household survey are developed by the
U.S. Census Bureau. Each year, the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new
information and assumptions about the growth of the population since the previous decennial
census. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from adjustments
for net international migration, updated vital statistics, and estimation methodology
improvements.
In accordance with usual practice, BLS will not revise the official household survey estimates
for December 2019 and earlier months. To show the impact of the population adjustments,
however, differences in selected December 2019 labor force series based on the old and new
population estimates are shown in table B.
The adjustments decreased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional population in
December by 811,000, the civilian labor force by 524,000, employment by 507,000, and
unemployment by 17,000. The number of persons not in the labor force was decreased by 287,000.
The total unemployment rate, employment-population ratio, and labor force participation rate
were unaffected.
Data users are cautioned that these annual population adjustments can affect the comparability
of household data series over time. Table C shows the effect of the introduction of new
population estimates on the comparison of selected labor force measures between December 2019
and January 2020. Additional information on the population adjustments and their effect on
national labor force estimates is available at
www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps-pop-control-adjustments.pdf.
Population controls for veterans, which are derived from a Department of Veterans Affairs'
population model and are updated periodically, have also been updated with the release of
data for January 2020. Historical data have not been revised.

Table B. Effect of the updated population controls on December 2019 estimates by sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, not seasonally adjusted
(Numbers in thousands)

Category

Total

Men

Women

White

Black or
African
Ameri-
can

Asian

Hispanic or
Latino
ethnicity

Civilian noninstitutional population

-811

-403

-408

-461

-59

-273

-323

Civilian labor force

-524

-289

-235

-297

-41

-171

-219

Participation rate

0

0

0

0

0

0

-0.1

Employed

-507

-279

-227

-287

-39

-167

-210

Employment-population ratio

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Unemployed

-17

-10

-9

-10

-2

-4

-9

Unemployment rate

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Not in labor force

-287

-115

-172

-164

-18

-102

-104

NOTE: Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding. Estimates for the above race groups (White, Black or African American, and Asian) do not sum to totals because data are not presented for all races. Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race.

Table C. December 2019-January 2020 changes in selected labor force measures, with adjustments for population control effects
(Numbers in thousands)

– December – January changes in household data are not shown due to the introduction of updated population controls.
NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Footnotes
(1) Includes other industries, not shown separately.
(2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries.
(3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours.
(4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls.
(5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.
(P) Preliminary

NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2019 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.

Story 1: President Trump’s Impeachment Trial Legal Team Exposes The Many Lies of Adam Schiff, Radical Extremist Democratic Socialists (REDS) and The Big Lie Media Mob– The American People Are Not Amused By Progressive Propaganda Stunt of The REDS — Vote All Democrats Out of Power In November 2020 — Power Back To The American People — Videos

TIME TO END THIS: Jay Sekulow TEARS Into Democrats Case On President Trump Impeachment

President Donald Trump’s legal team argued before the U.S. Senate on Jan. 25 that the notes released from the Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president shows he “did nothing wrong.” Michael Purpura, a member of Trump’s defense team in the Senate impeachment trial, said the president did not link U.S. military aid for Ukraine to an investigation into the Bidens. “The truth is simple, and it’s right before our eyes. The president was at all times acting in our national interesting and pursuant to his oath of office,” Purpura said, arguing that Trump was concerned about combating corruption and about the lack of aid from other European nations. Trump’s legal team began its defense on Saturday, after House managers were given 24 hours over three days to make their case for why the president should be removed from office. The defense will be given the same amount of time to make its arguments. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December on two articles of impeachment–abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate trial will determine whether Trump is acquitted of those charges or convicted and removed from office.

WATCH: Trump lawyer: White House justified in not complying with House | Trump impeachment trial

The White House was justified in not complying with House requests for documents and witness testimony during the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, the president’s legal team argued on Jan. 25 before the U.S. Senate. Patrick Philbin, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, argued the House did not take the proper steps to issue valid subpoenas as part of the impeachment probe. He also worked to argue that the House did not allow Trump enough opportunity to defend himself during the House inquiry. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in December on two articles of impeachment–abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate trial will determine whether Trump is acquitted of those charges or convicted and removed from office.

YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO: President Trump Lawyer Says Democrats LIE All THE TIME

Day five highlights as Republicans make their defence in the impeachment trial against Donald Trump

Lawmakers speak as Trump legal team presents its case

Byron York on Trump defense team at impeachment trial

Members of Trump’s defense team blast House managers’ impeachment case

Gaslighting – How A Narcissist Destroys You By Eroding Your Sanity

Gas Lighting and Psychopaths ~ A Short Film

The White House is offering a fiery legal response to the articles of impeachment, in an executive summary of a legal brief obtained by NPR.

Decrying a “rigged process” that is “brazenly political,” President Trump’s legal team accuses House Democrats of “focus-group testing various charges for weeks” and says that “all that House Democrats have succeeded in proving is that the President did absolutely nothing wrong.”

They sum up the impeachment as “a dangerous perversion of the Constitution that the Senate should swiftly and roundly condemn.”

The full brief, totaling 110 pages, was sent in response to a Senate summons ahead of the trial, set to begin Tuesday.

“It’s been a substantial project,” said a source working with the president’s legal team who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It’s a Supreme Court caliber brief.”

The brief expands upon arguments made in a document released over the weekend answering the articles of impeachment, dealing with both process and substance. They argue that the president cannot be impeached for an abuse of power short of a crime and that the president didn’t abuse his power anyhow.

“Abuse of power isn’t a crime,” said the source.

Democrats argue abuse of power is the very thing the Framers had in mind and that “high crimes and misdemeanors” spelled out in the Constitution isn’t meant literally, but is a term of art. Over time, federal officials have been impeached without criminal accusations. But Trump’s legal team says no president has been impeached without a criminal offense and charging abuse of power is simply too subjective. “It would alter the separation of powers to allow this sort of vague standard to be used, to impeach the president,” the source said.

The brief also argues that the article of impeachment for obstructing Congress is invalid because of standing executive branch protections and because the House didn’t pursue judicial recourse to force cooperation.

House Democratic impeachment managers responded to the Trump legal team’s arguments on Monday. “The Framers deliberately drafted a Constitution that allows the Senate to remove Presidents who, like President Trump, abuse their power to cheat in elections, betray our national security, and ignore checks and balances,” they wrote. “That President Trump believes otherwise, and insists he is free to engage in such conduct again, only highlights the continuing threat he poses to the Nation if allowed to remain in office.”

Donald Trump’s defense lawyers accuse the Democrats of ‘massive’ election interference, call Adam Schiff a liar, demand to know where the whistleblower is but only mention the Bidens ONCE in their opening – after the president blamed ‘dumb’ AOC

Donald Trump‘s defense team began their case for the president’s acquittal on Saturday after Democrats spent three days outlining their arguments for impeachment – rolling out his greatest hits but surprisingly barely mentioning Joe and Hunter Biden by name.

Instead they sought to undercut the Democrats legal arguments and portrayed the president as a victim of political enemies who wanted to undercut his election and denied him due process during the House investigation.

‘They’re here to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history,’ Cipollone noted. ‘And we can’t allow that to happen.’

Trump’s team isn’t showing its hand as to whether the Bidens will make an appearance when the trial resumes on Monday.

‘I’m not going to get into what we are presenting in court,’ said a source working on the president’s legal team in a call with reporters when asked about the Bidens.

President Trump weighed in on the trial a few hours after it concluded, arguing he’s been ‘unfairly’ treated and the victim of a ‘totally partisan Impeachment Hoax.’

‘Any fair minded person watching the Senate trial today would be able to see how unfairly I have been treated and that this is indeed the totally partisan Impeachment Hoax that EVERYBODY, including the Democrats, truly knows it is. This should never be allowed to happen again!,’ he wrote.

The president also laid out his lawyers’ attack line in a tweet ahead of the trial – saying his lawyers will go after prominent Democrats Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had no formal role in the making the impeachment case before the Senate.

Ocasio-Cortez joined the majority of Democrats in voting for the two articles of impeachment – abuse of power and obstruction of justice – against the president. But she was not a member of either House committee that led the inquiry or questioned witnesses.

It was Schiff who bore the brunt of hits from Team Trump.

Deputy White House counsel Michael Purpura opened his part of the defense by playing the video of Schiff’s parody of Zelensky call at one of the House impeachment hearing – a move that infuriated the president and one Trump has repeatedly criticized.

‘That’s fake,’ Purpura noted.

President Trump’s defense team began their case for his acquittal on Saturday

‘The president has done absolutely nothing wrong,’ White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said

Trump attacked Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who had no formal role in the making the impeachment case before the Senate

Adam Schiff leads the House impeachment managers to the Senate to hear Trump’s defense team

And Deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin accused Schiff of lying about his contact with the whistleblower, whose revelations of the details of President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sparked the formal impeachment inquiry in the House.

Schiff’s staff on the Intelligence committee had contact with the whistleblower and referred him to a lawyer. Schiff says he’s never met the whistleblower.

The Democratic congressman from California, who served as House Democrats’ led impeachment manager, accused the president’s lawyers of ‘trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.’

‘After listening to the President’s lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations: They don’t contest the facts of Trump’s scheme. They’re trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth. And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses,’ Schiff tweeted after the trial ended for the day.

He also charged the president’s lawyers with going after the House impeachment managers because they don’t have a case.

‘They just want to attack the House managers. Look, that’s what you do. And, you know, as a prosecutor I’ve seen it time and time again, when your client is guilty when your client is dead to rights. You don’t want to talk about your clients, guilt, you want to attack the prosecution. It is a fairly elemental strategy,’ Schiff said at a press conference after the trial.

‘I don’t even know who the whistleblower is,’ he noted.

Schiff was observed by a DailyMail.com reporter spending the sitting at the Democrats’ desk in the well of the Senate, taking notes on a white legal pad and listening intently to the president’s case.

Trump’s private attorney Jay Sekulow also attacked the managers

‘This entire impeachment process is about the House managers’ insistence that they are able to read everybody’s thoughts,’ Sekulow said. ‘They can read everybody’s intention. Even when the principal speakers, the witnesses themselves, insist that those interpretations are wrong.’

Philbin did not name the whistleblower when he made the president’s case to the 100 senators but he did say suggest the person had political bias against the president.

‘We don’t know exactly what the political bias was because the inspector general testified in the House committees in executive session and that transcript is still secret,’ he said. The inspector general met with the whistleblower and revealed the person’s complaint about Trump’s call.

‘You think you’d want to find out something about the complainant that started all of it,’ Philbin said. ‘Because motivations, bias, reason to bring the complainant could be relevant.’

He noted public reports on the person suggested it was an intelligence staffer who worked with Joe Biden when he was vice president on Ukraine matters.

Trump’s attorney: Overwhelming evidence of the president’s innocence

Adam Schiff said Trump’s lawyers attacked the House impeachment managers because they have no case

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, center, stands with his son, Jordan Sekulow, left, and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone when they arrive at the Capitol on Saturday morning

Public reports on the whistleblower indicate the person is male and a CIA staffer who was detailed to the Trump White House but is now back at the agency. The person also could have been detailed to the Obama White House when Biden was vice president but it’s unclear if that is the case. DailyMail.com has not independently verified the whistleblower’s identity.

Trump’s Republican allies came out of the president’s first day of defense praising his legal team’s work at undercutting the Democrats’ case.

Democrats countered that the lawyers had shown the need to call more witnesses.

Schiff pointed out that the president’s team – who talked about several staffers who testified in the House impeachment inquiry – didn’t mention acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney or former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Democrats want to hear from both men.

But there was relief on both sides of the aisle that it was a short day – a little more than three hours – after 12-plus hours the first three days of Trump’s trial.

And senators showed relief the president’s legal team took a professional respectful tone in their opening arguments. There was fear of an aggressive attack.

‘Definitely a palpable nervousness as the POTUS lawyers began. Many Dem Senators were worried that their tone would be abrasive and over-the-top. It wasn’t. That’s a good thing. But will it continue?,’ Democratic Senator Chris Murphy tweeted after the trial.

There was also barely mention of Joe and Hunter Biden, who the president attacks frequently on his Twitter account and at campaign rallies.

Joe Biden was popular among his fellow senators and many of them sitting as jurors to Trump served with Biden in the Senate.

The majority of the president’s defense focused on process and procedure.

Cipollone began by using Trump’s favorite argument – that senators should read the call of the president’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky.

‘They didn’t talk a lot about the transcript of the call which I would submit is the best evidence,’ Cipollone said of the Democrats.

He charged Democrats with not presenting all the evidence, including items that would act in the president’s defense that he said the defense team would show.

‘Ask yourself why didn’t I see this in the first three days,’ Cipollone told senators. ‘As House managers really their goal should be to show you all of the facts.’

Trump’s defense team also are portraying Trump as the victim of Democrats trying to undo the 2016 election.

‘They’re asking you not only to overturn the results of the last election but – as I’ve said – before they’re asking you to remove president trump from the ballot of an election occurring in nine months,’ Cipollone said, adding Democrats are trying to ‘take that decision away from the American people.’

‘They’re asking you to tear up all the ballots across this country on their own initiative,’ he noted.

Deputy White House counsel Michael Purpura also painted the leaking of details about the Zelensky-Trump call – and national security staff reports of their concerns to the White House legal team – as merely policy differences between the president and staff instead of an abuse of power.

He argued there was no evidence Trump made security assistance to the Ukraine contingent upon that country launching an investigation into the Bidens and noted the Ukraine didn’t even know the money was ‘paused’ until shortly before it was released.

‘Most of the Democratic witnesses have never spoken to the president at all, let alone about Ukraine security assistance,’ he said of the House impeachment hearings.

Democrats argue Trump deliberately held up the aid to pressure the Ukraine and released it once details of his phone call with Zelensky were leaked.

Saturday’s short day is expected to give way to a longer day on Monday when the presidents’ lawyers return to make their case for acquittal.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to try and flip it back on Democrats, arguing it is them who accepted foreign help in 2016 via the infamous – and unproven – Steele dossier.

Based upon research from former British spy Christopher Steele, and paid for by lawyers who also did work for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the dossier claimed the Russians had blackmail material on Trump.

Trump has denied this.

Trump’s lawyers will also point to a recent report criticizing the FBI for the way it obtained a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Democrats wrapped their case Friday evening and warned President Trump will continue to abuse his executive power unless Congress intervenes.

‘Give America a fair trial,’ said Adam Schiff, the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, in his closing argument. ‘She’s worth it.’

THE TRUMP DREAM TEAM: WHO’S DEFENDING PRESIDENT IN SENATE

Lead counsel: Pat Cipollone, White House Counsel

Millionaire conservative Catholic father-of-10 who has little courtroom experience. ‘Strong, silent,’ type who has earned praise from Trump’s camp for resisting Congress’ investigations of the Ukraine scandal. Critics accused him of failing in his duty as a lawyer by writing ‘nonsense letters’ to reject Congressional oversight. His background is commercial litigation and as White House counsel is the leader of the Trump administration’s drive to put conservative judges in federal courts. Trump has already asked aides behind the scenes if he will perform well on television.

Jay Sekulow, president’s personal attorney

Millionaire one-time IRS prosecutor with his own talk radio show. Self-described Messianic Jew who was counsel to Jews for Jesus. Longtime legal adviser to Trump, but he is himself mentioned in the Ukraine affair, with Lev Parnas saying that he knew about Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to dig dirt on the Bidens but did not approve. Michael Cohen claimed that Sekulow and other members of Trump’s legal team put falsehoods in his statement to the House intel committee; Sekulow denies it. The New York Times reported that he voted for Hillary Clinton.

Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor

Shot to worldwide fame for his part in the ‘dream team’s’ successful defense of OJ Simpson but was already famous for his defense of Claus von Bulow, the British socialite accused of murdering his wife in Rhode Island. Ron Silver played Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune. In 2008 he was a member of Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team which secured the lenient plea deal from federal prosecutors. But Dershowitz was a longtime friend of Epstein and was accused of having sex with two of Esptein’s victims. He denies it and is suing one of them, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, for libel, saying his sex life is ‘perfect.’ He admits he received a massage at Epstein’s home – but ‘kept my underwear on.’ Registered Democrat who spoke out against Trump’s election and again after the Charlottesville violence. Has become an outspoken defender of Trump against the Robert Mueller probe and the Ukraine investigation.

Ken Starr, former Whitewater independent counsel

Famous and reviled in equal measure for his Whitewater investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s finances in Arkansas which eventually led him to evidence of Bill’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. He was a federal appeals judge and George H.W. Bush’s solicitor general before that role. He later became president and chancellor of Baylor University in Waco but was removed as president in May 2016 for mishandling the investigation into allegations of multiple sexual assaults by football players and other students, then quit voluntarily as chancellor. Is the second Jeffrey Epstein defender on the team; he was present in 2008 when the plea deal with prosecutor Alex Acosta was made which let Epstein off with just 13 months of work release prison.

Pam Bondi, White House attorney

Florida’s first female attorney general and also a long-time TV attorney who has been a Fox News guest host – including co-hosting The Five for three days in a row while still attorney general. Began her career as a prosecutor before moving into elected politics. Has been hit by a series of controversies, among them persuading then Florida governor Rick Scott to change the date of an execution because it clashed with her re-election launch, and has come under fire for her association with Scientology. She has defended it saying the group were helping her efforts against human trafficking; at the time the FBI was investigating it over human trafficking. Went all-in on Trump in 2016, leading ‘lock her up’ chants at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Joined the White House last November to aid the anti-impeachment effort.

Robert Ray, Ken Starr’s successor

Headed the Office of the Independent Counsel from 1999 until it closed for business in 2002, meaning it was he, not Ken Starr, who wrote the final words on the scandals of the Clinton years. Those included the report on Monica Lewinsky, the report on the savings and loan misconduct claims which came to be known as Whitewater, and the report on Travelgate, the White House travel office’s firing and file-gate, claims of improper access to the FBI’s background reports. Struck deal with Clinton to give up his law license. Went into private practice. Was charged with stalking a former lover in New York in 2006 four months after she ended their relationship. Now a frequent presence on Fox News.

Jane Raskin, private attorney

Part of a husband-and-wife Florida law team, she is a former prosecutor who specializes in defending in white collar crime cases. Their connection to Trump appears to have been through Ty Cobb, the former White House attorney. She and husband Martin advised Trump on his response to Mueller and appear to have been focused on avoiding an obstruction of justice accusation. That may be the reason to bring her in to the impeachment team; Democrats raised the specter of reviving Mueller’s report in their evidence to the impeachment trial.

Patrick Philbin and Michael Purpura, Deputy White House Counsels

Lowest-profile of the team, they work full-time for Cipollone in the White House. Philbin (left) was a George W. Bush appointee at the Department of Justice who helped come up with the system of trying Guantanamo Bay detainees in front of military commissions instead of in U.S. courts. He was one a group of officials, led by James Comey, who rushed to seriously-ill John Ashcroft’s bedside to stop the renewal of the warrant-less wiretap program. Unknown if Trump is aware of his links to Comey. Purpura (right) is also a Bush White House veteran who shaped its response to Congressional investigations at a time when there were calls for him to be impeached over going to war in Iraq. His name is on letters telling State Department employees not to testify. Has been named as a possible Trump nominee for federal court in Hawaii.

Senators baffled by half-empty spectator gallery during week one of impeachment trial

The Senate spectator gallery was unexpectedly half-empty throughout the first week of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, baffling senators who are shocked people who pass on the historic hearings.

The Senate trial began on January 16 after Trump was impeached on two articles stemming from accusations that he withheld military aid money from US ally Ukraine until they conducted an investigation into presidential hopeful Joe Biden.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma told New York Post: ‘I’m really surprised at that because this is kind of historic and I would think this would be an opportunity for people to get in there regardless of whose side you are on.’

The Senate spectator gallery gives interested individuals a bird’s eye view of the senators debating whether Trump should become the third president to be formally removed from office.

Journalists are not allowed to bring cameras or cell phones into the gallery, so the low audience turnout is only known by people who have direct access to the chamber.

Senators are shocked that the gallery inside the chamber was at least half-empty during the first week of the impeachment trial

Republican Sen. James Inhofe (center) said he’s shocked that people are missing this ‘historic’ impeachment trial and ‘he would think this would be an opportunity for people to get in there regardless of whose side you are on’

A handful of Republicans blame the lackluster turn out on the tedious opening remarks from their Democratic colleagues.

‘Well, if I had a choice I’d probably be home watching Chicago PD,’ said Sen. Pat Roberts, who underwent back surgery in August.

He added: ‘No, don’t put that in there or that would make me sound terrible.’

Sen. Rand Paul, who’s taken up crossword puzzles to entertain himself, said: ‘You know, 28 hours of hearing the same thing over and over again isn’t all that exciting. ‘

On Wednesday, Paul tweeted a photo of a gallery ticket and invited Trump to be his guest.

Republican Sen. Paul Rand (pictured): ‘You know, 28 hours of hearing the same thing over and over again isn’t all that exciting’

Some Democrats say televising the proceedings and accessibility are playing a role in the empty gallery seats.

‘I don’t think the average person thinks that it would be easy to come and watch,’ Sen. Chris Coons said.

Pictured: The US Senate chamber room with a view of the spectator gallery overhead

Most Senate gallery tickets are distributed through individual Senate Offices that get between three to five tickets that allows audiences to watch in half-hour seating blocks.

The tickets can be used by multiple people, including constituents and staff, who use shifts. Some Senate offices say they have a strong interest and offer shifts up to one hour.

Sen. Patrick Leahy revealed his tickets ‘have all been used.’

Democrats warn that Trump will abuse his office again if not removed

The Senate Sergeant at Arms determines rules for Senate chamber, but did not say how gallery seating is managed.

Some seats have had very little guests this week, including both corners in the east side of the chamber.

According to a Senate aid, a section that seats around 100 people and is known as the family gallery is usually reserved for relatives of senators. It’s possible Senate offices have varying policies for those tickets.

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds points towards a ban on not-taking outside a press section was unappealing to to Senate staff.

‘They can do more work in the office where they have an ability to take notes,’ Rounds said.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware wishes the Senate gallery would be more accessible to the public and says experiencing the trial in person is different than watching on TV

Brown said: ‘I’ve gotta think, a lot of student groups are here, a lot of individuals are here, tourists are here. People would love to be part of this.’

Coons added that while the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police ‘have a job to keep us safe’, ‘the gallery should be accessible.’

‘I have four tickets and we’re happy to rotate them out. I’ve had a whole bunch of Delawareans come down and watch in the gallery,’ Coons said.

‘And that’s encouraging because it is a different experience watching it in the chamber than watching it on TV.’

Although the impeachment trial will continue into into the following weeks, it is widely speculated that Trump will be acquitted.

Republicans hold the majority of seats, with many of them having already announced their intentions to acquit the president.

President Trump’s legal defense team mounted an aggressive offense on Saturday as it opened its side in the Senate impeachment trial by attacking his Democratic accusers as partisan witch-hunters trying to remove him from office because they could not beat him at the ballot box.

“They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots all across the country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people,” Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, said of the House managers. “They’re here,” he added moments later, “to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history, and we can’t allow that to happen.”

The president’s team spent only two of the 24 hours allotted to them so that senators could leave town for the weekend before the defense presentation resumes on Monday, but it was the first time his lawyers have formally made a case for him since the House opened its inquiry in September. The goal was to poke holes in the House managers’

While less combative than their famously combustible client, the lawyers relentlessly assailed the prosecution’s interpretation of events, accusing House Democrats of cherry-picking the facts and leaving out contrary information to construct a skewed narrative. They maintained that none of what the Democrats presented the Senate justified the first eviction of a president from the White House in American history.

“They have the burden of proof,” Mr. Cipollone said, “and they have not come close to meeting it.”

After the session, Democrats contended that the White House arguments actually bolstered their demand to call witnesses like John R. Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser, and Mick Mulvaney, his acting White House chief of staff, as well as require documents be turned over, all of which the Republican majority so far has rejected.

“They kept saying there are no eyewitness accounts,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters. “But there are people that have eyewitness accounts. The very four witnesses, and the very four sets of documents that we have asked for.”

The abbreviated weekend session wrapped up five days of presentations and arguments on the Senate floor in the country’s third presidential impeachment trial. With Mr. Trump’s fate on the line, the trial, unfolding less than 10 months before he faces re-election, has come to encapsulate the pitched three-year struggle that has consumed Washington since he took office determined to disrupt the existing order, at times in ways that crossed longstanding lines.

While he did not attend Saturday’s opening of his defense, as he had previously suggested he might, Mr. Trump watched from the White House and weighed in on Twitter with attacks on prominent Democrats including Mr. Schumer, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the lead prosecutor for Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, portraying the day as a chance to put them on trial instead.

President Trump’s defense team will draw a more receptive audience in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the White House has been working in tandem with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.Credit…Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

Even after the prosecution’s presentation, Mr. Trump appeared certain to win acquittal in a trial that requires the support of two-thirds of senators for conviction. So the main priority for the president’s legal team as it opened its arguments was not to undermine its own advantage or give wavering moderate Republican senators reasons to support Democratic requests for witnesses and documents.

A vote on that question will not come until next week, and it remained the central question of the impeachment trial, with the potential to either prolong the process and yield new revelations that could further damage Mr. Trump, or bring the proceeding to a swift conclusion. But after long days of exhaustive arguments by the House managers, there was little indication that there would be enough Republican support to consider new evidence, even as a 2018 recording was made public later Saturday in which Mr. Trump appeared to order the firing of the United States ambassador to Ukraine.

Republican senators seemed relieved to finally have the president’s side of the debate presented on the floor.

“They completely undermined the case of the Democrats and truly undermined the credibility of Adam Schiff,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming told reporters afterward.

Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, who joined Mr. Trump onstage to address abortion opponents at the March for Life on Friday, said the president’s lawyers showed that the managers were selective in their presentation of the facts.

“It happened over and over again for three days where they really cherry-pick one part of a sentence and then would not read the full part of the sentence,” he said. “Today we got a chance to see the whole sentence.”

Mr. Trump faces two articles of impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemming from his effort to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into his Democratic rivals while withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved security aid, a decision that a government agency called a violation of law.

The House managers have argued the president’s actions amounted to a corrupt scheme to invite foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election, and part of a dangerous pattern of behavior by Mr. Trump of using the machinery of government for his own benefit.

But Mr. Cipollone belittled the weight of the allegations, suggesting the Constitution’s framers had in mind something more consequential when they created the impeachment clause than what the House managers had presented.

“They’ve come here today and they’ve basically said, ‘Let’s cancel an election over a meeting with the Ukraine,’ ” he said.

The president’s lawyers maintained that he had every right to set foreign policy as he saw fit and that he had valid concerns about corruption in Ukraine and burden-sharing with Europe that prompted him to suspend the aid temporarily. They also argued that he was protecting presidential prerogatives when he refused to allow aides to testify or provide documents in the House proceedings.

Michael Purpura, a deputy White House counsel, noted that Mr. Trump did not explicitly link American aid to his demand for investigations during his July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and pointed to Mr. Zelensky’s public statements that he did not feel pressured. Mr. Purpura added that there could not have been an illicit quid pro quo, because the Ukrainians did not know about the aid freeze until a month later. But American and Ukrainian officials have said in fact they did know as early as the day of the presidents’ call.

Michael Purpura, a deputy White House counsel, leaving the Capitol on Saturday.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Mr. Purpura dismissed much of the prosecution evidence as hearsay, and played video clips of former officials saying they knew of no quid pro quo. He also played a succession of clips of Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, testifying that he “presumed” there was a link between the suspended aid and the demand for investigations but did not actually know it for a fact.

Yet in parts of Mr. Sondland’s testimony that the president’s lawyers did not show, the ambassador said he had been involved in a pressure campaign on Ukraine aimed at getting the country to announce investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals, directed by the president himself. Mr. Sondland also said there had been a clear “quid pro quo,” conditioning a White House meeting for the Ukrainian president to his willingness to announce the investigations Mr. Trump wanted, and that “everyone was in the loop” about the arrangement.

Following the president’s lead, his lawyers targeted Mr. Schiff, replaying video from a hearing last year in which he embellished Mr. Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s leader for dramatic effect and said he was describing the “sum and character” of what the president had tried to communicate.

“That’s fake,” Mr. Purpura said after the clip ended. “That’s not the real call. That’s not the evidence here.”

Under the trial rules, the House managers had no speaking opportunity on the floor on Saturday, but they delivered a 28,578-page trial record to the secretary of the Senate that served as the foundation of their case.

Image

Representative Adam B. Schiff leads the House managers and aides on Saturday in delivering a trial record to the secretary of the Senate.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

At a news conference following the arguments by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Mr. Schiff offered a point-by-point rebuttal and said the attacks on him and his colleagues were just an attempt to distract from the evidence.

“When your client is guilty or your client is dead to rights, you don’t want to talk about your client’s guilt,” said Mr. Schiff, a former prosecutor. “You want to attack the prosecution.”

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, another manager, dismissed as “nonsense” the allegation that Democrats were trying to improperly steal an election.

“The point of the impeachment provision in the Constitution is to deal with dangerous presidents who cheat on elections and try to cheat in stealing the election as this president did, and is trying for the next time,” Mr. Nadler said.

The White House arguments on Saturday were meant to be what Jay Sekulow, another of the president’s lawyers, called a “sneak preview” before being resumed on Monday.

Like the managers before them, the White House lawyers have 24 hours over as many as three days to present their side, but said they will not use all of that, playing to the exhaustion of senators who grew weary as the House team used nearly all of its time, going late into the evening night after night, often repeating many of the same arguments.

The Senate will then consider any motions to dismiss the case or to call witnesses and demand documents. The House managers need at least four Republican senators to join the Democrats to call witnesses. If no witnesses are called and no motion to dismiss the case is passed, the Senate would then move to final deliberations on conviction or acquittal, with a verdict possible as early as next week.

Michael D. Shear and Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

Intercept Co-Founder Shreds Adam Schiff As A ‘Sociopath’ After These Remarks About Carter Page

If there is one thing that is never in short supply with the Democratic Party, it’s arrogance. And Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the starting quarterback for the Donald Trump impeachment game, is full of it. As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiffy decided to set up the big top to this circus that’s engulfed the Hill by holding secret impeachment hearings. There were scores of witnesses who testified behind closed doors and he released selective transcripts that only bolstered the Democratic cause for impeachment. It was crap. And when the House vote made the inquiry official and this whole thing came out of the basement—the reasons to impeach collapsed. Much like the Russian collusion myth, once the public saw the evidence, they balked. It’s just too evident that the Democrats have been planning this for years. They cannot hide their hatred. Meanwhile, in normal America, economic opportunities have been growing, paychecks have been getting bigger, and things are overall just not apocalyptic. Impeachment is not popular in the swing states and this whole fiasco has only increased President Trump’s approval ratings and pushed these key states further out of reach for Democrats.

Yet, while conservative media has torched Schiff, his minions, and this whole charade, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey, formerly of The Young Turks, have also ripped the liberal media for their peddling of Russian collusion hysteria. They were skeptical of this myth from the get-go. They’re appalled at how the Trump dossier, which was proven to be totally false, was weaponized to secure spy warrants on Trump officials based on fairy tale evidence. If you want to know why some people fear a large federal government, this is why. And like most arrogant government workers, they’ll never admit when they’re wrong. If you’re the chair of the House Intel. Committee, you bet you’re not apologizing. In a recent interview with Margaret Hooper on PBS Firing Line, Schiff pretty much said he doesn’t feel bad that Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign who was targeted by the FBI, had his life destroyed.

Schiff had written a memo pretty much absolving the FBI of any wrongdoing, adding that FISA process was not abused. Yeah, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report by Michael Horowitz trashed all of Schiff’s points in his fake memo rebutting his colleague Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who was chair of the House Intelligence Committee before Democrats retook the House in 2018 (via Fox News):

Firing Line with Margaret Hoover

✔@FiringLineShow

.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not expressing any remorse for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who was swept up in the yearslong Russia investigation.

In an interview clip released on Friday, “Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover read quotes from Page about how the Russia probe had such a negative impact, including how the FBI spying into his life “ruined his good name” and that he will “never completely have his name restored.”

“Do you have any sympathy for Carter Page?” Hoover asked.

“I have to say, you know, Carter Page came before our committee and for hours of his testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony,” Schiff responded. “It’s hard to be sympathetic to someone who isn’t honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath. It’s also hard to be sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin.”

Yea, Page worked with the CIA, something that was omitted in the FISA process when securing the spy warrant against him. Greenwald said this response was sociopathic.

“If you don’t feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then you’re not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath,” wrote Greenwald. “In other words: Adam Schiff.”

Glenn Greenwald

✔@ggreenwald

If you don’t feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then you’re not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath.

.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”

Tracey mocked Schiff for speaking about the KGB in the present tense. And people wonder why the Trump-Kremlin collusion myth was never taken seriously. I mean besides the fact that there is zero evidence proving such a tall tale.

.@RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page “denied things that we knew were true” in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & “was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies.”

Page is somewhat lucky in the sense that he had a vehicle to push back and allies that we’re willing to challenge this absurd theory about him being a foreign agent in a Russian collusion scheme. At the same time, Schiff’s remarks should also serve as a reminder to Republicans. This is war. Democrats are willing to destroy innocent lives in order to remove Trump. Not saying we should do the same, but our defense should be just as brutal, methodical, and devastating as what Democrats have doled out for the past three years. It is a take no prisoners election cycle. We have to get mean. Never apologize—that’s an action reserved for honorable people, respectable people. We’re fighting the slime of the earth. The most abhorrent sub-human creatures in politics. And every single one of them has “Democrat” next to their name. don’t trust them. Don’t be friends with them. Let them wallow in their own filth, that appalling aura of self-righteousness that buoys their confidence that they’ll beat Trump in 2020. And when Trump is re-elected, enjoy the meltdown…again. It’s going to get nasty. Schiff’s actions are a reminder of that. Act accordingly.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, or sanity. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs.[1][2]

Instances may range from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorientating the victim. The term originated from the 1938 Patrick Hamilton play Gas Light and its 1940 and 1944 film adaptations (both titled Gaslight), in which a character tries to make his wife believe that she has gone insane to cover his criminal activities. When he turns up the gas-fueled lights in the upstairs apartment in order to search for a murdered woman’s jewels, the gaslights in his own apartment grow dimmer but he convinces his wife that she is imagining the change. The term has been used in clinical and research literature, as well as in political commentary.[3]:31–46[4][5][6]

Contents

Etymology

The term originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a victim by her husband in the 1938 stage play Gas Light,[7] and known as Angel Street in the United States, and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944.[8] In the story, a husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, remembering things incorrectly, or delusional when she points out these changes. The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gas lights in their home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. He also uses the lights in the sealed-off attic to secretly search for jewels belonging to a woman whom he has murdered. He makes loud noises as he searches, including talking to himself. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, noises and voices, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane.[9] He intends on having her assessed and committed to a mental institution, after which he will be able to gain power of attorney over her and search more effectively.

The term “gaslighting” has been used colloquially since the 1960s[10] to describe efforts to manipulate someone’s perception of reality. The term has been used to describe such behaviour in psychoanalytic literature since the 1970s.[11] In a 1980 book on child sexual abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor‘s Gaslight (1944) based on the play and wrote, “even today the word [gaslighting] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another’s perception of reality.”[12]

Nature

Psychiatrist Theodore Dorpat described two characteristics of gaslighting: that the abuser wants full control of feelings, thoughts, or actions of the victim, and that the abuser emotionally abuses the victim, discreetly, but in hostile, abusive, or coercive ways.[13] He described this as an example of projective identification.[2]

Psychoanalysts Victor Calef and Edward Weinshel argued that gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim: “this imposition is based on a very special kind of ‘transfer’ … of potentially painful mental conflicts”.[14] The authors explored a variety of reasons why the victims may have “a tendency to incorporate and assimilate what others externalize and project onto them”, and concluded that gaslighting may be “a very complex highly structured configuration which encompasses contributions from many elements of the psychic apparatus.”

Signs and methods

As described by Patricia Evans, seven “warning signs” of gaslighting are the observed abuser’s:[15]

Undermining the victim by gradually weakening them and their thought processes.

Evans considers it necessary to understand the warning signs in order to begin the process of healing from it.[15]

In a popular treatment, psychologist Elinor Greenberg has described three common methods of gaslighting:[16]

Hiding. The abuser may hide things from the victim and cover up what they have done. Instead of feeling ashamed, the abuser may convince the victim to doubt their own beliefs about the situation and turn the blame on themselves.

Changing. The abuser feels the need to change something about the victim. Whether it be the way the victim dresses or acts, they want the victim to mold into their fantasy. If the victim does not comply, the abuser may convince the victim that he or she is in fact not good enough.

Control. The abuser may want to fully control and have power over the victim. In doing so, the abuser will try to seclude them from other friends and family so only they can influence the victim’s thoughts and actions. The abuser gets pleasure from knowing the victim is being fully controlled by them.

An abuser’s ultimate goal, as described by the divorce process coach Lindsey Ellison, is to make their victim second-guess their choices and to question their sanity, making them more dependent on the abuser.[17] One tactic used to degrade a victim’s self-esteem is the abuser alternating between ignoring and attending to the victim, so that the victim lowers their expectation of what constitutes affection, and perceives themselves as less worthy of affection.[17][verification needed]

Where gaslighting is used

Personality disorders

Sociopaths[18] and narcissists[16] frequently use gaslighting tactics to abuse and undermine their victims. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws and exploit others, but typically also are convincing liars, sometimes charming ones, who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their own perceptions.[18] Some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners by flatly denying that they have been violent.[4] Gaslighting may occur in parent–child relationships, with either parent, child, or both lying to the other and attempting to undermine perceptions.[19]

Gender

According to philosophy professor Kate Abramson, the act of gaslighting is not specifically tied to being sexist, although women tend to be frequent targets of gaslighting compared to men who more often engage in gaslighting.[20] Abramson explained this as a result of social conditioning, and said “it’s part of the structure of sexism that women are supposed to be less confident, to doubt our views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions, more than men. And gaslighting is aimed at undermining someone’s views, beliefs, reactions, and perceptions. The sexist norm of self-doubt, in all its forms, prepares us for just that.”[20] Abramson said that the final “stage” of gaslighting is severe, major, clinical depression.[20]

With respect to women in particular, philosophy professor Hilde Lindemann said that in such cases, the victim’s ability to resist the manipulation depends on “her ability to trust her own judgements”. Establishment of “counterstories” may help the victim reacquire “ordinary levels of free agency”.[21]

In psychiatry

Gaslighting has been observed between patients and staff in inpatient psychiatric facilities.[22]

In a 1996 book, Dorpat claimed that “gaslighting and other methods of interpersonal control are widely used by m